New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat • Hacker News Board

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#61

Post by koheripbal » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 9:38 AM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

> Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more bureaucratic

Anyone who's actually had to deal with a union can agree with this point.

At our company, a number of job functions are union-only work, meaning it is a violation of the union contract for any non-union employee to perform that work.

In principle, you might think that makes sense, until you need to get something very simple done - that you are willing to do yourself and cannot.

It becomes infuriating. Need to plug that new PC into the socket? Sorry, equipment installation is a union job. But the new employee can't start if the new PC on his desk isn't plugged in? Tough shit - please put in a requisition and it'll get scheduled within the 48hr SLA, and completed in 7-10 business days.

Need that extra monitor moved between two adjacent cubes? Sorry, equipment relocation is union work. If you do it yourself, you'll be fired. But it's just a monitor, you say? Tough shit - please put in a requisition and it'll get scheduled within the 48hr SLA, and completed in 7-10 business days.

Oh, you want to move that folding table and a few chairs to the conference room so you can have a design meeting with the whole team? Sorry furniture movement is union-only work. But it'll take me literally 10 minutes and the alternative is to cancel the meeting. Tough shit - please put in a requisition and it'll get scheduled within the 48hr SLA, and completed in 7-10 business days.

These are real examples at my company - I didn't make them up.

So what's the ultimate outcome here? Employees obviously look for ways to circumvent the union. Then the union finds out and sends a few reps in to take pictures of things that have been touched/moved by non-union workers, and sends it to their lawyers (paid for by union dues). The lawyers then send formal notices that the company has violated the company contract, and notices go out to the whole company - union workers get all riled up that the company isn't respecting them, and non-union workers roll their eyes and vow never to work for another unionized company again. Bad feelings all around & Giant waste of everyone's time.

The alternative to carving out job functions for union workers, is to force everyone to unionize - and that's got its own problems.

Unions are great in unsafe industries in an unregulated market - ie. 1940's coal mines (extreme example). Six figured desk jobs can manage with some reasonable labor laws made at the State level. A union is a huge additional layer of bureaucracy.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#62

Post by regularfry » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 9:39 AM UTC

shoo wrote: post #43

regularfry wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm endlessly surprised that unions are collectively as bad at PR as their image suggests.

One hypothesis that may explain the bad perception of unions is if there has been continuing investment and efforts in anti-union propaganda by pro-business or pro-corporate groups. A similar argument is put forward by Kerryn Higgs' book "Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet", to explain why society takes direction from economists, in pursuit of economic growth, rather than taking direction from scienc…

Oh, absolutely. I'm taking active anti-union action for granted. But isn't that table stakes?

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#63

Post by rightbyte » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 9:41 AM UTC

0xy wrote: post #44

objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

What if the person to fight in my corner is me? Unions drag everyone's wages to an average. Poor performers get paid more, top performers get paid less. No thanks, I can negotiate for myself. Look at teachers and police unions for a prime example. Great police get paid the same as the police who racially profile. Great teachers get paid the same as the teachers who phone it in. Additionally unions protect incompetent…

To me it seems "top performers" are not really recognized and job jumpers are the ones that are paid more.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#64

Post by regularfry » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 9:41 AM UTC

adwww wrote: post #45

pydry wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not much money and rich enemies will do that.

Here in the UK the union leaders manage to look like tits all on their own. I'd love to have a workable union system for tech workers here, but I just don't see what they offer unless you can persuade meaningful numbers of your coworkers to sign up.

I've been considering it just to have access to independent legal advice.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#65

Post by handoflixue » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 9:43 AM UTC

praptak wrote: post #30

Barrin92 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter."

It is not that simple. There's a continuum from writing a compiler to coding DestroyBaghdad. Usually people draw the line at "Is this tool primary purpose evil?". This tool is in a (darkish-)gray area IMHO. I don't think that employer blocking "fuck" or racial slurs is necessarily evil but it's not that good either. Automatic filters are pretty bad at doing their job, so filtering is a lame approach to solving anythi…

A tool that can block discussion of unionization is certainly a grey area. When you literally advertise "blocking discussion of unionization", I feel like you've left that grey area, though.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#66

Post by handoflixue » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 9:45 AM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #61

objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

> Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more bureaucratic Anyone who's actually had to deal with a union can agree with this point. At our company, a number of job functions are union-only work, meaning it is a violation of the union contract for any non-union employee to perform that work. In principle, you might think that makes sense, until you need to get something very simple done - that you are willing to…

I've worked plenty of union jobs that didn't have this problem. Like the original comment said: yes, some unions are bad. But it's ridiculous to pretend they're all like what you dealt with.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#67

Post by mattbillenstein » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 9:47 AM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #37

mattbillenstein wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've fought this feature in products for years - the product ppl always wanna ban bad words and I'm like - you can't, it literally never works, it just becomes a stupid arms race and it's not worth our time. I always lose this argument for some reason.

Here’s a good article to show people: http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history-of-t...

Ha, that's pretty great.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#68

Post by jodrellblank » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 9:49 AM UTC

0xy wrote: post #44

objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

What if the person to fight in my corner is me? Unions drag everyone's wages to an average. Poor performers get paid more, top performers get paid less. No thanks, I can negotiate for myself. Look at teachers and police unions for a prime example. Great police get paid the same as the police who racially profile. Great teachers get paid the same as the teachers who phone it in. Additionally unions protect incompetent…

> "Poor performers get paid more, top performers get paid less. No thanks, I can negotiate for myself."

The two retorts to this are: 1) it's selfish arguing. "Fuck you got mine" style, dismisses what happens to everyone else as long as you're OK. Which may be fine for you, but why should the rest of us agree that you being wealthier is the thing we all want?

2) You negotiating against the resources of a multi-million dollar company who can hire any legal or negotiating team of experts against you? Can you, really?

> "Additionally unions protect incompetent employees, which I don't want."

Unions don't have to protect incompetent employees, but they can demand that the employee be proved incompetent and not falsely accused of incompetence and sacked without "trial" - which could happen to you. Unions protect exploited, abused, unfairly treated employees too, which you might become one day.

> "I want to negotiate my own pay and benefits, and it's worked out excellent for me. A union only serves to harm my interests."

Voting sure is worse than having me as dictator, isn't it? Democracy only serves to harm my interests. Surely you will agree that's a good reason for FaceBook to suppress talk of Democracy and voting in nation-wide FaceBook chat?

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#69

Post by jodrellblank » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 9:53 AM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #63

0xy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the person to fight in my corner is me? Unions drag everyone's wages to an average. Poor performers get paid more, top performers get paid less. No thanks, I can negotiate for myself. Look at teachers and police unions for a prime example. Great police get paid the same as the police who racially profile. Great teachers get paid the same as the teachers who phone it in. Additionally unions protect incompetent…

To me it seems "top performers" are not really recognized and job jumpers are the ones that are paid more.

To me it seems like the scene in Game of Thrones: "Power is a curious thing. Three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man. Between them stands a common sellsword. Each great man bids the sellsword kill the other two. Who lives, who dies? Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick. A shadow on the wall."

Value is what someone will pay, the highest salaries go to those who can get them.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#70

Post by dijit » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:03 AM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #61

objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

> Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more bureaucratic Anyone who's actually had to deal with a union can agree with this point. At our company, a number of job functions are union-only work, meaning it is a violation of the union contract for any non-union employee to perform that work. In principle, you might think that makes sense, until you need to get something very simple done - that you are willing to…

Well, sorry to be blunt but that's fucking stupid.

Contrast that with my experience with Unions in Sweden; and that is that they basically don't exist except to ensure that workers rights are not infringed.

So they'll be involved in a termination, or help negotiate overtime pay.

There is no such thing as a "union job", it's just having what's referred to as a "collective agreement".