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

theintercept.com

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

#171

Post by take_a_breath »

koheripbal wrote: post #151
grasshopperpurp wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a union and see similar things, but instead of using lawyers, the union would note that the contract had been violated, and management will typically agree to pay the people who would have done the work. If it's just 10 minutes, the union probably wouldn't bother with it - unless it's a pattern, and in that case, they'd add up all the 10-minute transgressions. I often disagree with the focuses of my union, but…

> ...a union does is balance the leverage. Without them, the employer has all of it. Maybe that's true of low labor jobs, but Employees in six figure jobs have tremendous power. One of the reasons companies try to create anti-potching rules is exactly to try to get back some power. The unemployment rate in the US was 4% prior to covid, and even lower for tech and white collar desk jobs. This issue simply must take a…

== This issue simply must take a back seat to bigger problems in America.==

What if labor rights is actually the single biggest problem that drives all the others?

I can think of things like a higher minimum wage, paid sick leave, anti-discrimination in hiring, maternity/paternity leave, and guaranteed PTO that could be helped by unionization to make us a stronger country, collectively.

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

#172

Post by marcinzm »

jodrellblank wrote: post #68
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…

> " 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-milli…

>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?

I take it you've never actually gotten an offer with a large tech company. You're negotiating against some HR rep or hiring manager not some blacks ops negotiating team. Teams of lawyers cost a lot of money and paying them $40k to save $20k is stupid for a company.

>Unions protect exploited, abused, unfairly treated employees too, which you might become one day.

At the cost of also protecting the incompetent as they look very similar to those who are abused. Working with incompetent people is something engineers really dislike.

A well paid tech employee can invest their money, spend less, start passive income streams, etc. They have many options to hedge against future issues that don't include having to put up with idiots.

>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?

Governments are a necessary evil many would say, Democracy is simply the least bad of many bad options. Unions are not necessary.

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

#173

Post by toyg »

varispeed wrote: post #36

Here in the UK government is pushing no rights employment under guise of fairer taxation. People providing services will be taxed as employees but will not have any workers' rights, including no right to unionise, no equal pay, no maternity leave and so on. Currently this won't affect existing employees, but from April nothing will stop employers from terminating their staff and issuing new NRE contracts on a take it…

> even the unions are not too fussed about it

That's because it primarily hits contractors, who are typically not unionized and in fact tend to erode union presence.

Abuse of contractor agreements and temp-agencies has already been used for decades to effectively bust unions, that's really nothing new. Mass-rehiring could have been done already a long time ago, and likely was, by and large, where they could avoid the resulting bad press.

> The legislation is in current Finance Bill and so far has met no resistance and likely is going to pass.

Tories have a solid majority, and they are anti-unions as an article of faith. Even if Labour made a stink about it, tabloids would likely ignore it. The most pro-union Labour leader since the '80s spent 5 years being vilified precisely so he couldn't raise this sort of issue.

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

#174

Post by distances »

creaghpatr wrote: post #130
triceratops wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> game development...is notoriously abusive and can get away with it because of a fresh supply of enthusiastic young people. Hollywood also has an endless supply of enthusiastic young people. To me this sounds like an argument in favor of unionizing the game dev industry.

You don’t get into the Hollywood unions until you put in hundreds of hours of set time, most ADs I know don’t get the corresponding benefits until they are about 30.

Why's that? In the Nordics you can already join an union when you're a student without a job yet, and many people do.

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

#175

Post by dijit »

jcims wrote: post #164
dijit wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

For years now I've seen comments like this from Europeans every time unions come up in conversation online. You all need need to come work for a large union in the US. They are just not the same thing. I've had direct or indirect experience with Teamsters, CWA, NEA, IBEW and UBC. You can dress it up however you like but there are definitely 'union jobs' with all of the connotation that brings. Yes there are benefits…

This is the same argument I see americans make a lot.

"Unions are bad!", no, the concept is fine, you have some bad ones.

"Police are bad!", no, the concept is fine, yours are just untrained and overburdened.

"Public transport is bad, I need a car!", no, the concept is fine, you just have bad public transport and that forms your opinion.

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

#177

Post by LatteLazy »

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.

I'm not the person you replied to and I get where you're coming frorm but...

* Job jumping is what forces employers to actually recognize performance. That's both for the person leaving and for everyone else left behind.

* Not so much for the company a person leaves or joins, but for the economy as a whole, job jumping IS performance. Your job isn't just being good at whatever you do right now, it's finding and moving to roles that are more useful economically (aka pay more).

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

#178

Post by KorfmannArno »

dijit wrote: post #175
jcims wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For years now I've seen comments like this from Europeans every time unions come up in conversation online. You all need need to come work for a large union in the US. They are just not the same thing. I've had direct or indirect experience with Teamsters, CWA, NEA, IBEW and UBC. You can dress it up however you like but there are definitely 'union jobs' with all of the connotation that brings. Yes there are benefits…

This is the same argument I see americans make a lot. "Unions are bad!", no, the concept is fine, you have some bad ones. "Police are bad!", no, the concept is fine, yours are just untrained and overburdened. "Public transport is bad, I need a car!", no, the concept is fine, you just have bad public transport and that forms your opinion.

Please give an example of good public transport. (I'm living in Germany)

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

#179

Post by bsenftner »

jcims wrote: post #164
dijit wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

For years now I've seen comments like this from Europeans every time unions come up in conversation online. You all need need to come work for a large union in the US. They are just not the same thing. I've had direct or indirect experience with Teamsters, CWA, NEA, IBEW and UBC. You can dress it up however you like but there are definitely 'union jobs' with all of the connotation that brings. Yes there are benefits…

Sounds like American individualism tends to skew work arrangements to the point of them instituting what outsiders would say is corrupt systems. American unions are positioned in opposition of their management, when the situation is supposed to be collaborative cooperation. And I suspect this situation is a result of active opposition by the businesses. Individualism is a nice word for selfish.

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

#180

Post by take_a_breath »

lukebitts wrote: post #176
take_a_breath wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in unions can’t find other jobs?

They can’t find other unions

There is more than one union. You can also vote/organize to change your existing union (I can’t do that at my job).
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