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Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

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Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#931

Post by ieRei6ae »

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…

You need to define meritocracy.

There's plenty of excellent software engineers paid pennies to work on difficult problems because they live in countries with very low wages.

And plenty of people in silicon valley being wildly overpaid to copy paste javascript from stack overflow.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#932

Post by austincheney »

kerkeslager wrote: post #892
austincheney wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're proposing that developers pay to solve their employers' problem. Education is completely orthogonal to licensing or certification. If education is your primary basis of qualification then you are at best a beginner. I am proposing that developers pay to justify higher wages and cut through subjective hiring bullshit as part of their union dues they would pay for anyways to be a member of said union. When hav…

> I am proposing that developers pay to justify higher wages and cut through subjective hiring bullshit Why is that a problem developers need to solve? A bad hiring process hurts the company much more than developers. > The rest of your points don't make any sense. You don't need any education to be a developer. For example, I am completely self taught. I have also worked with some incredibly talented developers who…

> Why is that a problem developers need to solve? A bad hiring process hurts the company much more than developers.

Its not well thought out company policies that interview and hire people. Generally its other developers insecurely biasing their decisions on subjective considerations for their personal preferences. That hurts the company and potential candidates, but this is still how software hiring works in most cases.

> I'll also point out that a bachelor's degree in CS is a certification

No it isn't. A medical degree is not a medical license and a law degree isn't a law license. No education is a real estate or truck driver license, though both of those licenses demand some form of education. Hopefully the education has prepared you for both the real world and for the licensing, but clearly this is often not the case in practice, at least in software.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#933

Post by daemin »

Frondo wrote: post #661
shadowgovt wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an excellent example, because the key thing is: the companies involved weren't even thinking of it as wage-fixing. They were thinking of it as avoiding disruption to launch schedules by not churning people with low bus-factor. Employees and management have different perspectives on the work agreement and management's is over-represented because they set most of the company policy. An amplified employee voice…

The companies can call it whatever they want, but it reflects the power imbalance between worker and employer that unions exist solely to re-balance. Some managers in a board room somewhere made a decision that depressed the wages for how many thousands of workers, and what can those workers do about it? Jump ship to...the other companies that colluded to depress their wages? This whole "you're paid enough so don't u…

> This whole "you're paid enough so don't unionize" thing is so weak

Exactly, even Hollywood actors have a union! Although I would wager most of them aren't the high paying variety.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#934

Post by heavyset_go »

zchrykng wrote: post #57
ughitsaaron wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, New York is not a right-to-work state.

So you are fine with the majority forcing the minority to support something they don't want to support? Never going to get behind that notion myself.

No one is forcing them to work a job they don't want to. They're free to work literally anywhere else that will hire them.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#935

Post by biztos »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #911
gpm wrote: post #834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

You act like there is some shadowy cabal running cost benefit analysis of every decision for some evil purpose. Maybe the free snacks are there because it’s nice to have free snacks and the boss enjoys them? Does there really need to be a more sinister reason? I mean, I know at our company that I wanted to have drink fridges with a huge amount of interesting beverages because I enjoy drinking a different drink every…

Once I worked in a department that had a crappy coffee maker. We got a new boss. First thing he did was get a really good coffee maker installed.

That boss left, new boss showed up, coffee maker left and an even worse one than the original was installed. No espresso! In SF!

In my experience having at least a VP who actually cares about the perk will vastly improve it. But most won’t care and will do whatever the default is.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#936

Post by sjg007 »

chillacy wrote: post #905
sjg007 wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes software engineering different?

Many of us make more money writing software today than we could working one of those unionized jobs while having less credentialing (or not being in the top 1% like the sports players). Nothing on that list looks enviable to me.

You should actually look into those union careees and see how much they make. You’d be surprised.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#937

Post by thulecitizen »

I see a beautiful symphony here. The fact that this is discussed is to me a sign that enough people are feeling pressured and stressed, and sharing how the current systems don't work for them.

Through sharing we can reveal our hopes and frustrations.

Dialogue is step 1. It's a brave, difficult first step.

Bravo Hackernews community.

What ever pains people have, I'd like to ask them to try and see it as temporary growing pains. That maybe those who disagree with this development can see that others are sharing their unmet needs, as a request to help get help in getting those needs met. Exploring new strategies.

I believe we will make it through and come out stronger.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#938

Post by chimprich »

scarface74 wrote: post #571
Seenso wrote: post #516

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? Not necessarily. I'd imagine that a union could negotiate its pay-scales any way it likes, which could take into acc…

Why should a person take a pay cut to help someone else who is less skilled or chose different priorities above their jobs? I expect a person who is willing to devote 60 hours a week to get paid more than me when I go home after 8 hours.

> I expect a person who is willing to devote 60 hours a week to get paid more than me when I go home after 8 hours.

Apart from the fact you get diminishing returns on work quality for those sort of hours...

That person is neglecting their family and/or partner, or at the very least their own health if they're working those sort of hours. Where do they find time to work on personal relationships or do exercise?

It also skews job expectations by creating an atmosphere where other employees are pressured into working those sort of hours, with the same resulting problems.

If someone has no attachments, no outside interests, no interest in maintaining their health, and genuinely has that sort of energy and desire for work, let them pick up a part-time gig separate to their main job.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#939

Post by lmm »

caymanjim wrote: post #844
TylerE wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are buying more than the snacks. They are buying you time, since you never need to make office grocery runs to stock your desk. Might not be a huge deal, but elimination of chores really is a perk.

> They are buying more than the snacks. They are buying you time, since you never need to make office grocery runs to stock your desk. Might not be a huge deal, but elimination of chores really is a perk. Wrong. This is the complete opposite of what's happening. They aren't eliminating a chore you'd need to do. You're going to work 9-5 whether they provide free snacks or not, and you're going to snack. If they don't…

If your job is more fulfilling than walking to a store and standing in line (and most programming jobs are IME), then it's win-win. Company gets something they want, I get something I want, we're both happy.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#940

Post by ChrisAnders0n »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #714
kerkeslager wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, pay me the money you were going to spend on snacks and the money you were going to pay the person who you pay to fetch the snacks, and I'll go fetch my own snacks or order them off the internet to my desk. It's arguable whether it's actually a perk for me to spend 8 hours in a row at my desk, but even if we accept that claim at face value, it's still not a significant factor in any decisions I make. Perks are t…

> Okay, pay me the money you were going to spend on snacks and the money you were going to pay the person who you pay to fetch the snacks, and I'll go fetch my own snacks or order them off the internet to my desk. Your office manager (or whoever) orders snacks from a contractor in bulk once a month (they don't make N GrubHub/etc individual orders every day). If they give you your fraction of that back, it wouldn't co…

This entire thread is the reason unions are such a pain in the a$$.

You have a bunch of employees who have never run a company confidently telling with their handwaving math how things should work. You have a dozen people patting themselves and others on the back for the idea of getting a sliver of their snack budget back in salary with no concept of economies of scale.

While unionizing for backbreaking work like the manufacturing industry makes sense, in tech it is a nightmare. Let's see where Kickstarter finds itself in the next recession and see how things work out when executives can no longer make quick decisions but are forced to do everything by committee.

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