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

Post by notnap » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 8:09 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #324

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…

I'll never forget the union at a convention center that forced vendors to pay them to move anything from their own car they couldn't carry. Nothing but extortionist bullies squeezing every cent of protection money they could out of the people there who actually make things and add value to the world. In contrast, these union employees were nothing but parasites. They did nothing the vendors couldn't do themselves, wh…

Post by trowawee » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 8:16 PM UTC

nmfisher wrote: post #281

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Post by notnap » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

hatchnyc wrote: post #84

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…

Every time someone brings this up I can only imagine some horrible version of of something like SCRUM being given the force of law.

Post by bryan_w » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #423

umeshunni wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO I've never heard one of these stories where I thought Facebook was doing the right thing. Not once. It's almost like the media is pushing some kind of narrative here against an entity they compete with.

Doesn't make a lot of sense. Unlike traditional blogs, Facebook isn't exactly a place that's creating rival news content. If anything, FB helps spread the news by being a platform for people to post articles and stories.

Post by LordDragonfang » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 8:41 PM UTC

capdeck wrote: post #347

jimmaswell wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never forget the union at a convention center that forced vendors to pay them to move anything from their own car they couldn't carry. Nothing but extortionist bullies squeezing every cent of protection money they could out of the people there who actually make things and add value to the world. In contrast, these union employees were nothing but parasites. They did nothing the vendors couldn't do themselves, wh…

This is an excellent example why unions are wrong solution to a bigger problem - lack of universal healthcare, free education and guaranteed pension. If we had the three above - there won't be a need for unions because you are not loosing _everything_ when you are loosing a job. Until this bigger problem is fixed unions will remain one of the very few things workers can do to improve their odds in life. So you can't…