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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

#281

Post by nmfisher »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #226
maxsilver wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The alternative is to force everyone to unionize - and that's got its own problems. Does it really, though? Because literally every one of your complaints above would be solved, if your companies employees stopped actively fighting the union, and just simply joined it instead.

These rules impact the customers, too, not just the employees. Have you ever been involved with trade show setup? The trade show unions have elaborate rules about work attendees can and cannot do for themselves. At low-budget startups, we built our trade show booths ourselves. We had to carefully read the union rules during booth design so we made sure we could install our lighting without the use of a ladder and too…

How are you bound by union rules if none of your employees are members? I don't understand. Did the trade show organizer include a clause in your contract that you have to use union workers for certain jobs?

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

#282

Post by mindslight »

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…

For an example of how unions can get involved in unexpected ways, take a look at the SAG releases for participating in hobby projects (eg 48 Hour Film Festival). It's just an additional piece of paperwork, but it does demonstrate a dynamic that the union has a legitimate interest in overseeing and could just as well prohibit. A software union would surely become involved in bootstrapped startups, hackathons, and work on Free software. It's possible for these areas to be treated intelligently by a union, but it's also possible they wouldn't be.

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

#283

Post by emilecantin »

mcv wrote: post #114
michaelt wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The union is something the workers create and run. If they think a union they create would be bad, what are they saying about themselves? They think a union would be a bit like a homeowners association - in principle owned and run by them and never acting against their interests, but in practice a threat as much as an opportunity.

US homeowners association are another great example that doesn't match European experience. Why do Americans turn everything that's supposed to be in their own interest, into a vehicle for power abuse? That seems to be the recurring story in American unions, as well as homeowner associations. Are there any other supposedly-good organisations that are toxic in the US? Political parties? News? Boy scouts?

> Are there any other supposedly-good organisations that are toxic in the US?

Definitely.

> Political parties?

Check. There are only 2, and cynicism towards both of them is pretty high, as neither really represents the people.

> News?

Check as well. See Fox News, which actually delivers "entertainment" disguised as news.

> Boy scouts?

Probably not, but who knows?

Disclaimer: Not an American, just a Canadian that follows US new a bit.

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

#284

Post by starpilot »

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…

Aerospace engineers at Boeing with PhD's are part of the union SPEEA. It seems to work well for them.

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

#285

Post by ryguytilidie »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #27

Clearly, they don't play online games with a chat lobby. They would have quickly learned that such features is useless, as it's easily bypassed: - in novembre, we should cost them the electrons. Ionize! - It's time we u_nionize - un10n1z3 people ! - let's fetch the U:\N\I\O\N\I\Z\E file - all go to http://unio.ni/ze - so we should do the u-thingy - what about talking to Mr Ulysse Nionize - never too late to ｕｎᎥｏｎｉｚｅ…

Somewhat similar. I used to moderate a web forum and last summer I met someone from Scunthorpe. He said "yeah, its a small town, you've probably never heard of it." But I HAD heard of it because when I used to moderate that forum, we had someone from Scunthorpe sign up and the site blocked them for profanity. It was because their name contained the word "cunt". I've always found this funny and will remember Scunthorpe forever.

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

#286

Post by dijit »

waheoo wrote: post #277
dijit wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt about that. I’m just arguing that the concept is fine, and the implementation is corrupted. Removing the corruption would be great but the issue is not the concept itself.

What if the concept is what leads to the corruption? E.g. communism. Im for unions, it beats the current situation, but im weary of the sales pitch.

But there are non-corrupt unions in other countries?

Even some in the US as some commentators have suggested (Screen Actors Guild being one)

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

#287

Post by kenned3 »

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…

THIS!

when i was in my early 20's and unaware of how the world worked i had a job as a contract IT guy at a very well known Power company. People would call me up with their problems and i would fix them. After a few months, somone took me aside and explained to me that they are really bad, as they are "using" me to avoid having to deal with other unions to do this work. I was simply unaware that "plugging in a network cable" was a union job and i just did it as it was easy enought.

The sad thing is it was union employees attempting to avoid other union employees...

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

#288

Post by hedora »

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 would be much more attractive if US were an open shop country. Instead, we’re closed shop, which means that, once a union is in place, you can’t choose to join a different union. This routinely leads to situations where corrupt unions abuse their own members.

For an example of how this works in practice, look at the UAW’s conduct with UC’s grad students.

Years ago, they negotiated salary caps for grad students, and then negotiated contracts that severely cut health care benefits for women over their own members’ objections. Getting anything done involves baroque red tape, so even complaining about this sort of thing would take dozens of people multiple months (and almost certainly wouldn’t cause the union bosses to take action).

Recently, they ratified contracts when the rank and file protested at union meetings, and some UC campuses voted against the contract.

This led to illegal “wildcat” strikes where the students walked out because they couldn’t pay rent. The university then fired them.

This was only possible because of closed shops. If people want to switch unions, they should be allowed to.

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

#289

Post by Grimm1 »

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.

And all of those are certainly opinions, but trading them as fact is overreaching.

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

#290

Post by pletsch »

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 think this is the big problem, I was in the steelworkers union in Canada before going into tech and it made a lot of sense. It was a dangerous job and management was constantly trying to go around safety rules, so it made sense that we had a union to both fight for fair wages + safety practices. It was fairly cheap (vaguely remember it being $20ish/pay period) too.

I'm not sure tech has a similar need, wages are (generally) high, I would say safety is generally not a concern or where it is (data centers w/ noise), it's usually taken seriously. It's a hard sell.

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