Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA • Hacker News Board

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#161

Post by hinkley » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 4:09 AM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #151

Apocryphon wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with how they built their offices, in your opinion?

There's a lot of crappy office politics that circles around access to daylight. You invariably have a mismatch between Valuable Employees and Valuable deskspace, jockying for position becomes a distraction and having multiple grades of desk just kind of beats the newer employees about the head and shoulders with how little they matter. It is, in a word, fractious. The best solution I've seen for this is to keep most…

I'm still trying to locate the iteration that bugged me, but from what I can see of their new-new-new offices, they seem to be more in keeping with the style I talk about above:

https://medium.com/make-better-software/beyond-open-offices-...

... except that there is so little workspace that I had to stare at the picture for about fifteen seconds to figure out if they did, in fact, have any employees at all.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#162

Post by pandaman » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 4:31 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #118

manfredo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game developers' experiencing the misery of crunch time and layoffs is something I've heard about firsthand since the early 2000s at the latest. Reading accounts from earlier games' development cycles suggests that this has been common for even longer than that. Game development has always had cyclical labor demands and tight deadlines. I think you need to qualify the claim that these experiences are worsening. In fa…

That's fair, perhaps conditions haven't been substantially worse than in previous console generations. But it sounds like there's something driving the push towards unionizing/organizing, whatever it is. And it sounds like the general public is more aware it being a brutal industry.

Despite the popular belief, game developers are pretty well paid. Not every indie or QA contractor, of course, but it's a rich industry with 6 figure salaries and profit sharing/royalty bonuses in successful studios. So, of course, any union would love to represent game developers for a share of their income. Likewise, you don't often hear of, say, restaurant workers needing union representation because they do not make much money and rarely interest unions. This is what's driving calls for unionization IMHO.

And I agree with manfredo, I started in the industry in 90s, and crunch was already there. If anything, the situation improved in mid 00s, with CA strengthening exempt employees classification and later 00s with ea_spouse lawsuit. E.g. mandatory crunches are gone, it used to be that people were forced to stay late and come in on weekends even if they had nothing to do but good luck pulling this now. Nowadays people mostly crunch either because their bonus comes out of the game's sales (and/or metacritic score, like in EA) or because they are paid OT.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#163

Post by fiter » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 4:42 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #153

fiter wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're even more compromised if you are removed. In the US, do you think companies have not moved manufacturing from union plants to non-union plants? Do you think they have not moved manufacturing out of US plants? Do you think this does not have to do with union membership? I believe the adversarial view of unions and employers results in inefficiency and waste. I was suggesting an alternative view of unions and em…

> You're even more compromised if you are removed. Unions (or their leadership) perceived as serving management are removed, invariably and swiftly, by their constituents, whether through decertification or leadership elections.

I cannot tell if you are intentionally misreading my statement. If you are not, what I meant is that the union would be removed.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#164

Post by manfredo » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 5:09 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #160

manfredo wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if me and my 2 other buddies are the only two employees at an early startup we can unionize and demand immense equity packages, and the company is prohibited from hiring additional employees if they don't like our demands? This does not sound right - this effectively gives unions the ability to extort companies with impunity. I'll believe this claim that companies are prohibited by law from hiring a non-union work…

Again, they don't have to accept your demands, but they do have to negotiate rather than just telling you to buzz off. It's illegal for a business to "refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of its employees". Many people do argue that this gives unions the ability to extort companies with impunity - it's one of the main reasons companies often fight so hard against having a union form. (If you litera…

> It's illegal for a business to "refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of its employees".

Right, it's illegal for a company to say "we're not going to bargain with you collectively, at all" but it's not illegal to decline the bargain that employees offer. The company at least has to sit at the table and consider their option - it does not prohibit companies from listening to the collective bargain and declining to accept it.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#165

Post by manfredo » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 5:12 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #141

manfredo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right, but the fact that there's any movement in the industry at all, stories generating discussions such as this one, groups like the Tech Workers Coalition gaining attention, etc., can mean there's some trend shifting. Unless you think the news is selectively focusing on stories to cover and this is all media manufactured. Again, don't conflate discussion and attention with actual change. People who produce the n…

The decline of unionization in America has been noted for a long time. What's noteworthy is interest in unionizing in tech for the first time. And actual change usually requires prior discussion. Those 350 workers at least provide a small model and symbolic inspiration for future efforts.

Cool so we've gone from "high profile" tech unions to "a small model and symbolic inspiration". I think that's a much more effective expression of their significance (or lack thereof).

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#166

Post by Apocryphon » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #165

Apocryphon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The decline of unionization in America has been noted for a long time. What's noteworthy is interest in unionizing in tech for the first time. And actual change usually requires prior discussion. Those 350 workers at least provide a small model and symbolic inspiration for future efforts.

Cool so we've gone from "high profile" tech unions to "a small model and symbolic inspiration". I think that's a much more effective expression of their significance (or lack thereof).

You set the boundary at high profile, I did not. If I recall early, my original comment is "is surely causing something to change." I made no attempt to quantify how much, nor the rate, nor the acceleration of change.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#167

Post by manfredo » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 6:32 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #166

manfredo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool so we've gone from "high profile" tech unions to "a small model and symbolic inspiration". I think that's a much more effective expression of their significance (or lack thereof).

You set the boundary at high profile, I did not. If I recall early, my original comment is "is surely causing something to change." I made no attempt to quantify how much, nor the rate, nor the acceleration of change.

> Prior to this, and at Kickstarter, there were no high-profile tech unions. Now there is at least two. Now you might not consider that substantially more, but that's still definitely more.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22571261

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#168

Post by bennysonething » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 7:51 AM UTC

meowface wrote: post #88

bennysonething wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely disagree. They aren't miners working in horrible conditions where that's the only job in town. Game developers are highly talented, skilled individuals. There is a high demand for such people outside the game industry they choose to stay there. I'm a developer in the finance industry. Worked in a few other sectors too. If games industry is harsh, jump ship. Abused? Get real, the working populations outside…

>If games industry is harsh, jump ship. If the industry you work in sucks, jump ship? That's not exactly great advice when you've spent decades honing your craft in a certain industry. Even if someone did genuinely want to switch, game development skills aren't necessarily easily transferable to other kinds of development, even if it helps. That advice makes sense if a company you works for sucks, but if an entire in…

I've worked with quite a few developers who be jumped ship from the games industry. From what I've read it's a common pattern for for older game devs looking for sane working hours.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#169

Post by fiter » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

johnpowell wrote: post #158

fiter wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this one of the angles that unions use to sell themselves to companies? They can help by providing a well of valuable resources to draw on in an as-needed basis. When both hiring and firing would be an easier proposition, I could see more activity occurring as a result. These people would have experience at different companies and could provide their knowledge like many say is the benefit of people rotating jobs a…

There is a reason it is called the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers).. If you try to UBER union electricians you are probably going to be in for a rude awakening.

A friend of mine worked for the stage hand's union. It seemed as if it already worked like Uber. Of course in this case Uber was owned by the drivers, not a founder and investors.

What's the rude awakening that I should expect?

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#170

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #164

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, they don't have to accept your demands, but they do have to negotiate rather than just telling you to buzz off. It's illegal for a business to "refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of its employees". Many people do argue that this gives unions the ability to extort companies with impunity - it's one of the main reasons companies often fight so hard against having a union form. (If you litera…

> It's illegal for a business to "refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of its employees". Right, it's illegal for a company to say "we're not going to bargain with you collectively, at all" but it's not illegal to decline the bargain that employees offer. The company at least has to sit at the table and consider their option - it does not prohibit companies from listening to the collective bargain…

We may be saying the same thing from different angles. You have the right to decline the employees' proposal, but you have to try to negotiate something better, not just boot them out immediately.