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Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

cwa-union.org

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Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#51
post #7
post #2

I wonder why they need a union. Is something currently not working in their favor?

Why not join together and bargain as a team? Glitch isn't a startup. It's a 20 year old company with probably rigid rules.

> Why not join together and bargain as a team?

"Bargain as a team" is called "collective bargaining" is called a "union". Just avoid the indirection and call the thing by its name.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#52
post #5

Here is a question: Why don't we have more smaller unions in America, but instead these GIANT mega unions? I get collective bargaining is better with more numbers, but it feels like there is no way to have a "new" union exist?

As workers tend to have one goal, to have less of their labor time expropriated, there really isn't a reason to have more than one global union. Walmart has over half a trillion in revenue and over two million workers, and it makes sense a union containing those workers be of that size.

Also, if carpenters work for UPS, should they be in the carpenters union or the Teamsters? Large industrial unions do away with such jurisdictional problems.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#53
post #2

I wonder why they need a union. Is something currently not working in their favor?

A myth Americans believe is that you only need to form unions when there is an existing problem. That's like wanting medical coverage only after you get sick. You will not have the resources and voice if you wait until a crisis to organize. The employers relationship with unions is only antagonistic because of this waiting until crisis. on a secondary note, there is nothing wrong with living in a democracy and wantin…

> A myth Americans believe is that you only need to form unions when there is an existing problem.

I don't think this is true. Rather, they don't buy the myth that unions have no downsides. Therefore you choose not to willingly accept such downsides until necessary. Arguably medical coverage is always necessary and is a poor comparison.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#54

The recent flowering of union membership in the tech industry really warms my heart and makes me hope that this is the start of a pro-union resurgence nation-wide that reverses the conservative anti-union backlash that has dominated the US for decades. Unfortunately, conservatives have been mostly successful in gaining control of the courts, so expect union-busting measures to be rubber-stamped by them. There is like…

My concern as a libertarian is that unionizing tech will lead to calcification, decline of agility and innovation, and diversity of business structure. There's no question that the U.S. has been more innovative in tech than other countries over the past few decades. That's thanks to an entrepreneurial culture that encourages risk taking. Unions attempt to limit risk to employees. In doing so, they limit the agility of organizations. That is a significant trade-off worth pondering and debating.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#55

The recent flowering of union membership in the tech industry really warms my heart and makes me hope that this is the start of a pro-union resurgence nation-wide that reverses the conservative anti-union backlash that has dominated the US for decades. Unfortunately, conservatives have been mostly successful in gaining control of the courts, so expect union-busting measures to be rubber-stamped by them. There is like…

That’s why you have wildcat and general strikes. Courts rubber stamp union busting? Good luck getting your trash picked up or your grocery store stocked. Europeans figured this out a long time ago.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#56
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not join together and bargain as a team? Glitch isn't a startup. It's a 20 year old company with probably rigid rules.

> Why not join together and bargain as a team? "Bargain as a team" is called "collective bargaining" is called a "union". Just avoid the indirection and call the thing by its name.

I believe the commentator that you're replying to was referring to the fact that they just brought in a union with 700,000 other employees[0]. That significantly alters their team.

[0] Communications Workers of America (CWA) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 700,000 members in both the private and public sectors (also in Canada and Puerto Rico).

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#57
post #2

I wonder why they need a union. Is something currently not working in their favor?

A myth Americans believe is that you only need to form unions when there is an existing problem. That's like wanting medical coverage only after you get sick. You will not have the resources and voice if you wait until a crisis to organize. The employers relationship with unions is only antagonistic because of this waiting until crisis. on a secondary note, there is nothing wrong with living in a democracy and wantin…

I keep an open mind about unions. I hear they work well in many places (usually in Europe, for whatever reason), but many of us from blue collar American backgrounds only have experience with them protecting laggards and creating ridiculously inefficient working restrictions[^1][^2] which (presumably?) drive jobs overseas. I guess my questions for union proponents are: "Why do unions seem to work so poorly in the United States?" and "How do we make sure these proposed software unions don't suffer similarly?". How do we get the good without the bad?

[^1]: A particularly egregious example from the factory where my dad works as a maintenance person: they have a machine that cuts cardboard; to service the blade, they need 3 people: one to remove the bolts holding the blade in place, another to remove the blade, and yet another to service it (and then the first two must replace the blade and the bolts, respectively). There must be three distinct people (IIRC because they're from different unions or something similarly silly) by contract (not because removing the bolts or the blade requires special training), which generally involves a lot of waiting for each person to be available--something that could take half an hour often spans multiple days.

[^2]: Another particularly egregious example from my father-in-law's IT office (he has since retired): employees generally laze about doing little; they aren't allowed to browse the Internet or play games, but some bring in books and one woman literally sits staring vacantly at her black-screen monitor for hours on end. No idea why electronic idleness is okay, but reading, etc are okay.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#58
post #50
post #5

Here is a question: Why don't we have more smaller unions in America, but instead these GIANT mega unions? I get collective bargaining is better with more numbers, but it feels like there is no way to have a "new" union exist?

Bigger union == bigger bargaining power Other countries have much less liquid labour markets, or have bargaining powers of unions backed by governments, so they don't have to grow so much to make a difference.

Bigger Union == More Corruption

How does this bigger union give them any more bargaining power against glitch?

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here is a question: Why don't we have more smaller unions in America, but instead these GIANT mega unions? US labor law differs from European labor law, and it essentially encourages/requires a small number of conglomerate unions, each of which have exclusive representation within a company, rather than a larger number of independent unions which can coexist within a single company.

Sounds like as with our healthcare system and many other major problems in America, the problem isn't purely government vs. industry or liberal vs. conservative, but rather a mess of both.

It is a government problem, the government gave unions special rights that other organizations don't have. It's easy to fix, treat them like any other organization.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#60

The recent flowering of union membership in the tech industry really warms my heart and makes me hope that this is the start of a pro-union resurgence nation-wide that reverses the conservative anti-union backlash that has dominated the US for decades. Unfortunately, conservatives have been mostly successful in gaining control of the courts, so expect union-busting measures to be rubber-stamped by them. There is like…

That’s why you have wildcat and general strikes. Courts rubber stamp union busting? Good luck getting your trash picked up or your grocery store stocked. Europeans figured this out a long time ago.

I would argue you still need popular support as people might find that behavior abusive. I know I'd be willing to organize dump runs in the event my trash was not being picked up for a reason I didn't agree with.
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