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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

#301

Post by mennis16 »

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.

Not really your main point but there are quite a few US "metro areas" with fairly sparse layout/wide scope, so I think public transit actually is a harder problem in the US than it is in e.g. Europe. That said even the cities that don't have this excuse tend to have mediocre at best transit here (for example Boston).

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

#302

Post by pphysch »

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.

The "sales pitch" that is relevant here is the one put forth by the DoD and their enormously powerful SIGs for the last 75 years, namely "unions = communism" and "communism = bad".

As much as I would like to believe that there is a massive pro-working-class institution in the US that can afford to spend billions per annum on under-the-table PR/propaganda campaigns to shill collective action, it just isn't the case. The MIC on the other hand... putting those socialized taxpayer dollars to work against the evil working class (around the world).

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

#303

Post by C1sc0cat »

hedora wrote: post #288
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…

I did not think all union contracts where closed shop in the USA.

And this case why on earth where professional roles being represented by an Auto workers union.

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

#304

Post by newen »

jcims wrote: post #266
Frondo wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, like dijit said, something modeled after the Screen Actors Guild. You rockstars get your million dollar salaries, no one gets overworked.

Great point. Guilds in general are a great way to reboot collective bargaining in the US. That thought occurred to me earlier this year and I completely forgot about it in this thread.

What's the difference between a union and a guild? Do Americans just have an aversion to the word union now?

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

#305

Post by jdminhbg »

FuckButtons wrote: post #264
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…

Here’s the thing, if you set up a new union, you don’t have to follow the same model as the ones that don’t work well in the us, you can follow the ones that do. You also don’t have the same incentives or personnel as the unions you mentioned, an engineering union would look quite different just in terms of the personality types of the people involved if nothing else.

You don't get to just decide how your union will run in a vacuum, the US has laws that standardize a lot of things about them.

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

#306

Post by C1sc0cat »

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 is why you need a union for IT workers to - tell the blue collar union to piss off or more politely set demarcation boundary's.

I worked at a unionised company in the UK and the CWU would have got short shrift if they Tried that with my members (I was Branch's secretary For the M&P union)

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

#307

Post by thatguy0900 »

newen wrote: post #304
jcims wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. Guilds in general are a great way to reboot collective bargaining in the US. That thought occurred to me earlier this year and I completely forgot about it in this thread.

What's the difference between a union and a guild? Do Americans just have an aversion to the word union now?

A guild is a collection of independent contractors, a union is typically your own employees. Also guild sounds way cooler.

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

#308

Post by [deleted] »

mikestew wrote: post #298
koheripbal wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If I told you that I once worked in a shop that didn’t use source control, didn’t have any formal testing, and builds came from dev desktop machines, would you: 1. Vow never to work in the software industry. 2. Allow that perhaps mine is a bad example, that there might be good software shops to work in, and wait for more data. Though I would not fault anyone for choosing #1.

[deleted]

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

#310

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

dijit wrote: post #231
KorfmannArno wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

From the perspective of a person who travels a lot and exclusively uses public transportation; I think you don't value what you have. American systems are not dependable, intercity and interstate travel is often not punctual to the point of futility. There are very few examples that prove me wrong here (probably NYC NJ links being an exception) Travelling around Los Angeles is just not possible, the buses are disgust…

> Going from NYC to Philadelphia by train cost me $300, when I returned it cost me $82 and was delayed by 4hrs.

Next time don't take Amtrack. Using NJ Transit from NY Penn to Trenton then transfer to SEPTA train into Philly will be < $30. The delays are unavoidable if something is broken.

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