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Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

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Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#641

Post by heavyset_go »

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…

Movie stars with multi-million dollar contracts exist in the same union as B-list actors you've only ever seen in the backgrounds of infomercials.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#642

Post by sokoloff »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #596
eropple wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the engineering ethos of meritocracy You know what's pretty inarguably a real "meritocracy"? Professional sports players. And they're all unionized. Tech does not meaningfully or significantly adhere to any ethos of meritocracy; it is exactly as political as anything else. The part that really melts your brain is when you realize that the "meritocracy" myth is peddled so the people who don't realize they're bad at…

Sports is about the farthest thing from a meritocracy you can get. Only 25 NBA players in the history of the league have been below 5 foot 9 (175cm) [1] Professional athletes are genetic freaks first and foremost - look at the dropoff from college football players to professional players. It's not talent that determines who makes it, it's genetic ability. The absolute worst NFL team in history would decimate the best…

In what way are those fitness-for-purpose measures not a meritocracy?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#644

Post by austincheney »

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…

> Some issues are systemic across an industry.

The biggest problems I have with this industry most developers don't want fixed. So unless a union offers something like a certification, licensing, or credentialing program for its members, like the security industry does, I don't see a union solving the software industry problems most frustrating to me. A license or certification is valuable because it provides a common platform of competencies that raises the value of the union members in the workforce, requires documented continuing education, and ensures a common criteria of best practices that reinforces the business value of the union to business entities.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#645

Post by TwoFactor »

lexs wrote: post #349
pathseeker wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Somewhat obviously, I’ve seen some be successful with unions and others be successful without From the company perspective maybe, but I've not seen a union in the US that successfully rewards high performing employees over mediocre lifers. Overachievers end up leaving and you're left with no innovation. Do you have any examples of unions that have solved this problem?

NBA players association, actors guild, writers guild etc are famous examples of "rewarding high performing employees"

It's interesting that those are all effectively monopolies on the talent. I wonder if that just counters the brain-drain the parent comment was referring to since high performers can't leave the union for a non-union role.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#646

Post by kerkeslager »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #584
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…

Tech workers could have effectively used the leverage associated with unionization since at least 1984 during the semiconductor recession. Considering that the revenue per employee number is at an all time high, and the amount of money the company spends on the employee's working environment[1] is at record lows pretty much explains why this is going to be effective now when it wasn't before. There is also the issue…

Also, frankly, fsk free snacks. Pay me the money you were going to spend on snacks, and I'll choose whether to spend it on snacks or not. And since the money spent on free snacks was probably about $20/week, it won't be a significant consideration in any of my decisions.

Bus service might be more significant in some places, but every place I've ever lived had that subsidized by the government, and long commutes are a toxic thing in themselves.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#647

Post by three_seagrass »

Frondo wrote: post #528
save_ferris wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just wage-fixing, tech companies wield an absurd amount of power in other aspects of people’s lives. I was once let go due for “performance” reasons that involved major company politics behind the scenes. I’d just gotten my annual review from my boss emailed to my work email about a week before my termination, which showed stellar performance across the board. When I looked into filing for unemployment, I di…

Leave money negotiations off the table, and you could have a union establish a single consistent process for firing practices that'd protect someone like James Damore from being arbitrarily fired. I don't agree with what Damore had to say, but that shouldn't matter! I would absolutely support a union-backed fair process for evaluating his or anyone's continued employment, whatever controversial things they write abou…

James Damore was fired for perpetuating gender stereotypes, which he agreed he wouldn't do in the Google code of conduct. Even Damore confirmed this with the press. How would being unionized change that?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#648

Post by mjmahone17 »

bluGill wrote: post #452
Barrin92 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Are you exactly equal to the worker next to you? If so collective bargaining makes sense because a good deal for everybody is the best deal you can get. If not, then collective bargaining is keeping some great people down. The fact that you said rockstar developer says you believe that there are some non-rockstar developers who are presumably worth less. Note that athletic unions do not bargain for wages in general (…

Collective bargaining doesn’t need to bargain for equal wages. There’s all sorts of things that would be easier to collectively bargain, such as: - Allowing monetary gain from side projects - Eliminating non-competes - Establishing routes to stop unethical projects

Among other things. Pay can certainly be part of the conversation, but collective bargaining in general, as you pointed out in the case of athletic unions, doesn’t mean each individual is getting the same wage.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#649

Post by claudeganon »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #211
dsr_ wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you vote to change the positions, and if necessary the leadership. When you work for a contractor working for a corporation, you work for the contractor. When you work for a union working for a corporation, you work for the union. The difference is that the contractor isn't even notionally on your side, and the union is, at least in theory.

I wouldn't work for a corporation that organized "militant, corporate-backed political parties" either.

Then your probably going to have to work for yourself, if you’re in the US anyway. Even small companies do this through the US Chamber of Commerce.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#650

Post by triceratops »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #596
eropple wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the engineering ethos of meritocracy You know what's pretty inarguably a real "meritocracy"? Professional sports players. And they're all unionized. Tech does not meaningfully or significantly adhere to any ethos of meritocracy; it is exactly as political as anything else. The part that really melts your brain is when you realize that the "meritocracy" myth is peddled so the people who don't realize they're bad at…

Sports is about the farthest thing from a meritocracy you can get. Only 25 NBA players in the history of the league have been below 5 foot 9 (175cm) [1] Professional athletes are genetic freaks first and foremost - look at the dropoff from college football players to professional players. It's not talent that determines who makes it, it's genetic ability. The absolute worst NFL team in history would decimate the best…

"Meritocracy" is being judged on ability. How that ability originated is unimportant. Why does it matter that athletes' merit has a strong basis in genetics? Top-level athletes make it to the top level by being better than their peers.
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