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Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

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Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#801

Post by coredog64 »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #387
fennecfoxen wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also worth noting that NY is not a right to work state. This means that the 37 people who voted against the union have no right to not-pay-dues to the union. If the workers change their mind then, in theory, they will have the opportunity to vote to decertify the union, later in their employment (a minimum of 3 years). Approximately 0 unions a year are decertified this way in the US.

It's not really that big of a problem. In an ideal situation, sure, the union could represent union members and the non-union member would be banned from receiving any benefits bargained for by the union. Unfortunately, if the union has to represent everyone then everyone should pay, which isn't much different than if the <1% in leadership positions at a company makes a dumb decision costing the company money and peo…

There are 3 options. Non members can free ride, they can pay an agency fee, or they can pay full union dues. The Beck decision (not always well enforced) says that union members have a right not to pay for union costs outside of the agency fee.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#802

Post by Ididntdothis »

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 (…

“Are you exactly equal to the worker next to you?”

From the point of view of management one or two levels up from you, you are viewed as exactly the same. Most companies have narrow salary ranges for each level and you get more money mainly by being promoted. In a union shop this is no different.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#803

Post by hello_moto »

manfredo wrote: post #797
hello_moto wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think businesses are able to pay their workers, just not absurd amount of money that FAANG pays their respective workers. We're talking about 85k vs 200k for junior engineers here and probably 150k vs 500k for senior engineers. Are you suggesting that small businesses should just die? > I certainly think that there are a lot of ways in which the playing field needs to be evened between small and big companies, so t…

If they can't afford the price of labor why should the business continue to exist? If the going rate for a plumber is $100 an hour, why should I be surprised if I get no responses when I'm only willing to pay $40?

That is a very overly simplified perspective.

Let me rephrase the situation: Majority CAN pay plumbers vs Majority CANNOT pay FAANG level.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#804

Post by manfredo »

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…

> Sure, unions have bureaucracy, but they have bureaucracy that is incentivized to increase outcomes for the employee and not the employer. You are directly paying the union to represent and fight for you.

No, they have bureaucracy that is incentivized to increase the influence and power of the union leadership. You are directly paying the union to represent the union's interest, which may or may not align with your own.

E.g. a motivated, capable teacher has a portion of their salary deducted and spent on defending seniority based pay even if said teacher is in favor of performance based pay. The union directly acts against the desired of the employee.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#805

Post by hello_moto »

kerkeslager wrote: post #592
hello_moto wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think businesses are able to pay their workers, just not absurd amount of money that FAANG pays their respective workers. We're talking about 85k vs 200k for junior engineers here and probably 150k vs 500k for senior engineers. Are you suggesting that small businesses should just die? > I certainly think that there are a lot of ways in which the playing field needs to be evened between small and big companies, so t…

> I think businesses are able to pay their workers, just not absurd amount of money that FAANG pays their respective workers. If the lower amount is reasonable and people are willing to work for it, then there isn't a problem. But you said, "FAANG just shoot everybody expectation to the roof and non-FAANG is having hard time to compete in salary (sure, there are some exception but they are exceptions)." So it sounds…

Austin, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, (and maybe London UK) branches of FAANG pays 2-3x from the top-10% market average in that area.

SDE1 @ Amazon Vancouver get at least 160-180k (CAD).

SDE3 @ Tableau Vancouver can hit $300k-$350k (CAD).

SDE3 @ Amazon Seattle can get paid 400-500k (USD).

I don't know how much Google Singapore, Zurich, and China pay compare to the market. I heard Alibaba pays $200k USD (if you're OK with 996) for Soft Eng (not in management).

All I said was that "competitive salary" is loosely defined because once FAANG landed in a specific location, they will absolutely "crushed" your notion of competitive salary.

This is the reason why I find the notion of "competitive salary" is interesting (and a bit funny). Employees will demand "competitive salary" and when we asked them, they will point out to the maximum TC that they can find in their area. That's not "competitive" salary. That's "I want to get paid the max".

Of course... it wouldn't be sexy to say "pay us fairly" since that equates to "market average".

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#806

Post by hello_moto »

Apocryphon wrote: post #575
hello_moto wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think businesses are able to pay their workers, just not absurd amount of money that FAANG pays their respective workers. We're talking about 85k vs 200k for junior engineers here and probably 150k vs 500k for senior engineers. Are you suggesting that small businesses should just die? > I certainly think that there are a lot of ways in which the playing field needs to be evened between small and big companies, so t…

Perhaps unionization can come hand-in-hand with breaking up tech monopolies to encourage competitive behavior to allow smaller startups to survive.

Somehow my view on this would be:

The BIGS will be too big to accept union and the less BIGS will have to accept their fate to live with unionized workers.

Employees will choose between: get paid tons of money but sacrifice your life vs unionized and accept market average pay (or a little bit above).

Just like life: high-risk high-gain, low-risk low-gain.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#807

Post by dang »

ksr_throwaway wrote: post #536
thu2111 wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the article's description of why the union was created accurate?

Yes it's accurate, though the "Always Punch Nazis" controversy was just the tip of the iceberg. Employees were being treated like enemies by some in upper management. Edit: I've been rate limited by HN mods (thanks!), so not replying on this account anymore. All the best!

New accounts are rate limited by software. I've marked your account to exempt it from this now.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#808

Post by claudeganon »

sokoloff wrote: post #794
yumraj wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Why do tech workers need a union? 1. Fight ageism (every 20 year old today will grow up someday) 2. Fight open office layout (my opinion, may not be shared by everyone) 3. Fight for equal pay, discriminations of various sorts 4. Fight for reasonable share in success and against the massive differential between CxO and others' pay 5. Resist outsourcing where it makes sense ....... the list goes on ....

Many of the most talented or hardest working engineers might rationally be opposed to equal pay measures.

Lobbying for equal pay protections isn’t independent of evaluations of merit. It’s about correcting demonstrable systemic bias against a protected class, e.g. if all women were being paid less then men in the same roles, with same experience, merit evaluations etc.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#809

Post by manfredo »

SkyBelow wrote: post #514
manfredo wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because now other employees have no motivation to put in anything more than mediocre work. The reality is people are motivated primarily by self interest. If advancement and retention is based on seniority rather than merit, people have no incentive to put in more than the minimum work.

This is assuming they were already based on merit and not on nepotism and favoritism. In comparison to those, seniority might be a reasonable alternative.

Competition will bring success to the company that fosters an engaged and motivated workforce. Even in national unions, they are still subject to foreign competition.

Sure, the free market isn't immune to nepotism or favoritism. But unions more often than not institute practices that give the same rewards to mediocrity as excellence - to the effect that the latter either put in less work or change jobs.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#810

Post by acdha »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #525
acdha wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very simplistic assumption that there’s one company interest which everyone understands and supports. I’ve seen many places where it would be as simple as department A owns that function and they care about making their lives easier, not your productivity. That’s basically the norm for large company IT departments, with nary a union in sight. Remember, there’s been a well-funded campaign pushing back agains…

Expecting that companies want their employees to be able to do their jobs without being blocked by picayune rules is simple, but it's not simplistic.

Again, “company” is not the same as “each distinct political group within the company”. Anyone with experience at a large company will probably have examples of groups behaving against the perceive global because that was better within their group’s incentive structure.

As a simple example, how often is purchasing inordinately expensive because something was abused in the past and that group was told to make sure it never happens again? Or a sales group setting engineering up for failure because they personally had a huge financial incentive to do so?

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