Kickstarter employees vote to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#831

Post by jkingsbery » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 1:46 AM UTC

jkingsbery wrote: post #530

elicash wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I brought up professional sports unions in the context of having a highly competitive group of workers who make large salaries, and that a union can still be useful in that environment as far as negotiations. That professional sports are monopolies and monopsonies isn't particularly relevant to this point. The fact that tech workers can find a job elsewhere is even more motiviation to unionize because you have even m…

It's really not a fair comparison: we think of athletes as making large salaries, but beyond the stars, many who make the highest level professional league will make a league minimum salary over a relatively short career, as opposed to white collar workers who typically make 6 figure salaries over multiple decades. That sports leagues are actually very relevant. See for example from https://theundefeated.com/features…

Another thing worth pointing out from this link: when the NFL players were last trying to get serious about negotiating with the NFL owners, they decertified the union. Their ultimate threat wasn't "you can't do this to us, we're part of a union," it was "if you don't give us concessions, we'll get rid of our union so you're on the wrong side of regulations." This is a completely different scenario from what software engineers would face. The analog with sports is just really not very good (whether one is in favor of unions for white collar workers or not).

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#832

Post by jariel » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 1:46 AM UTC

zpallin wrote: post #798

jariel wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mondragon is an ethnocentric, nationalist organization with strong political orientations. It's not a general example of what anyone would think of as a regular cooperative. If a small part of Vermont where 'its own country' and constantly under threat of economic annexation from the US or Canada, well, people might organize differently than they do in California.

That's an extreme perspective. Mondragon is about as "nationalist" and "ethnocentric" as Ford, Samsung, or Sony. I'm not sure what "strong political orientations" is supposed to mean; I can easily point to just about any international corporation and find evidence of strong political "orientations" expressed by the board or its corporate executives and evidence of the corporation pursuing their political interests as…

Mondragon employs almost 100K people in a 'nation' of 3.5M people. It's inexorably tied to the national struggle of 'Basque People' in their attempts to achieve some degree of economic autonomy while ostensibly 'controlled' by another group with whom they have had historical antagonisms.

If there were no 'Basque People' I submit there would be no Mondragon.

In Quebec, where I live, there's a similar dynamic, and a host of national entities: telecoms, energy, finance etc. were taken over in an ethnocentric fashion, quite literally stated by the managers of the organizations. As a non-Quebecer, when I opened my bank account at 'Desjardins' (French/Quebecois almost cooperative style bank), they referred to themselves as 'nous' (meaning 'us') and to myself as 'vous' (meaning you, plural), as though there was a clear distinction in their minds. Their employment at Desjardins bank is accepted at least some extent as a 'cause', tied to the nationalist movement. I'm not offended by it as I'm not really ethnically 'Quebecois' but the boundary lines were crystal clear.

This type of thing is common and normal in the world, something that 'New Worlders' often struggle with because we view things through a different lens. I think this causes us to misinterpret important dynamics, and not grasp what's actually happening with causes such as Mondragon, and certain kinds of socialized services in other European countries.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#833

Post by nine_k » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 1:47 AM UTC

prawn wrote: post #814

bearmcbearsly wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno... I was a victim of this wage-fixing scheme, as were all of my coworkers at the time. And I don't know of a single one who would have preferred to have a union collectively negotiating wages. The whole scheme was that the companies stopped their recruiters from cold-calling each others' employees. That kept wages down by reducing the opportunities for people to get a better salary by moving between companies…

I'm not familiar with union laws, but couldn't those workers form a union that did exactly what they wanted and none of what they didn't want?

Why can't we have any other organization to which we delegate our power, but which then does exactly what we want it to do?

Because with the power comes an opinion on how to best wield it — maybe entirely for the good of the community, but often not limited by that. People why strive to be in control most often have their own axe to grind, too.

But a larger problem is the "they want". "They" are many people, and their opinions on a particular topic are "mostly aligned" at best. This is not a single opinion or want. This is why any collective action of this sort can be "mostly satisfactory" for the participants at best, and often quite disliked by some minor fraction of them.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#834

Post by gpm » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 1:47 AM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #646

ChuckMcM wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Free snacks has to be one of tech companies most profitable endeavors.

They've got a bunch of workers who cost them on the order of 1 to 4 dollars per minute. If they can spend a dollar on a snack to get 2 minutes more work out of them, they are making a killing.

Snacks aren't part of your salary for being an employee of your company, they're your company trying to make as efficient use of your work time as possible. By avoiding you walking around looking for your own snacks, by making sure you aren't hungry and therefore underperforming, etc.

The same goes for meals by the way, I can't believe the number of places that have expensive employees go buy food for themselves blocks away... they're literally throwing away money by not having cheap employees fetch it in a single batch.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#835

Post by miscPerson » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 1:54 AM UTC

ken wrote: post #825

miscPerson wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, plenty of misandrists and anti-White racists do show up to those meetings and join panels to push their discriminatory agenda. Why do you think we talk about the lack of women in STEM, but not the lack of men in HR, education, social work, psychology, etc? Because bigots set the agenda. Having sports programs for one sex has been ruled illegal under Title IX — but how many universities have special tuto…

Not in my experience (2 unions). Do you have any examples of unions where this has occurred? (Recently, not some event from the 1950's or 1960's -- racists and sexists were much more powerful in all forums back then.) Your example is universities, and I've never heard of any university faculty being unionized. In fact, that's another great example of a system where policymakers have immense prestige and very high pay…

I upvoted for the valid callout about being off topic.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#836

Post by lawnchair_larry » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

wbronitsky wrote: post #745

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s already illegal and was punished accordingly, so no need for a union. Labor laws are a better tool.

This is a pretty specious argument. Murder is illegal and punished severely, yet we still try and avoid getting killed. I would posit that it is the same here; wage fixing is bad and punished, but wouldn't it be better if we had a faster mechanism for guaranteeing equity in treatment by corporations?

No. That’s more like saying we should join a union so we can put rules in place that say employers aren’t allowed to murder us.

It’s already illegal, and people who don’t care about the law won’t care about a union agreement either.

The same court battle and settlement process would result. Or worse, everyone would be forced to strike, and all employees are legally barred from working.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#837

Post by qtplatypus » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 2:15 AM UTC

prawn wrote: post #814

bearmcbearsly wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno... I was a victim of this wage-fixing scheme, as were all of my coworkers at the time. And I don't know of a single one who would have preferred to have a union collectively negotiating wages. The whole scheme was that the companies stopped their recruiters from cold-calling each others' employees. That kept wages down by reducing the opportunities for people to get a better salary by moving between companies…

I'm not familiar with union laws, but couldn't those workers form a union that did exactly what they wanted and none of what they didn't want?

Because it results in a parasite effect. The union uses its power to negotiate a pay rise for its members. The business then gives the pay rise to all the employees. Each employee thinks “Well I would have got the benefit if I was a union member or not, so I’ll stop paying my union fees”

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#838

Post by justlexi93 » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

These workers are setting an example for the entire industry. Tech employees deserve job security, strong wages and benefits, and a voice in their companies.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#839

Post by wyager » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #646

ChuckMcM wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Office perks are tax efficient. They aren’t subject to payroll taxes and are a deductible business expense. Not having any perks at all would be wasteful.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#840

Post by qtplatypus » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 2:22 AM UTC

ken wrote: post #825

miscPerson wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, plenty of misandrists and anti-White racists do show up to those meetings and join panels to push their discriminatory agenda. Why do you think we talk about the lack of women in STEM, but not the lack of men in HR, education, social work, psychology, etc? Because bigots set the agenda. Having sports programs for one sex has been ruled illegal under Title IX — but how many universities have special tuto…

Not in my experience (2 unions). Do you have any examples of unions where this has occurred? (Recently, not some event from the 1950's or 1960's -- racists and sexists were much more powerful in all forums back then.) Your example is universities, and I've never heard of any university faculty being unionized. In fact, that's another great example of a system where policymakers have immense prestige and very high pay…

I’ve worked in Australian Universities and both the support staff and teaching/research staff where unionised. And sure there are professional with tenure but there are also quite a large number of adjunct professors who are basically being exploited.