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Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

reuters.com

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Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#101

Post by celticninja »

kerosene wrote: post #83
dagurp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say you lose your negotiating power? The union will ensure that you have the same basic rights (and salary) that everyone else in the field. That doesn't mean you can't ask for a raise or a higher starting salary.

What typically happens with unions is the agreement will likely contain a salary guideline adhered to most of the time, which diminishes individual leverage.

That's never been my experience with unions and wages. My salary has been based in what I negotiated but the union ensures that each year I get a raise that is at least in line with inflation so that I am not, in really terms, making less money each year. They also collectively bargain on my behalf for annual leave and provide the same function for me that HR provide for my employer.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#103

Post by pc86 »

dagurp wrote: post #82
bartread wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course that doesn't mean that programmers shouldn't form a union. That's potentially quite an expensive trade-off. You give up your ability to negotiate so that somebody else will collectively negotiate on your behalf. That can work out well, at least for a while, but it's worth considering the longer-term consequences. E.g., in the longer term it can favour cheaper labour or cheaper competitors elsewhere. (Yes,…

Why do you say you lose your negotiating power? The union will ensure that you have the same basic rights (and salary) that everyone else in the field. That doesn't mean you can't ask for a raise or a higher starting salary.

I would love (seriously) to hear an example of a union that negotiates pay for its members but individuals successfully get additional raises or bonuses on top of that (not just for doing additional work). Teachers, pilots, public sector employees, all have pay contractually set. If you're a high school teacher and you ask your Principal or Vice Principal for a raise out of band you'll get laughed out of the room.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#104

Post by paulcole »

trytozoom wrote: post #55
colordrops wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in summary you are saying it makes no sense to be an employee at a startup. There's no upside except for "lottery winners".

I've seen a ton of this on HN for the past couple of years, "Go work for FAANG, startups are worthless." As someone who has started a company, gotten it funded, and would like to hire high quality engineers, this is deeply disheartening. I've tried to hire a few people, offering them market rate or close to it for base salary (_very_ rough ballpark 150-200K for 2-5y experience) and a decent chunk of equity (highly va…

Do you really need top notch people? Or do you just want them? Start lowering your expectations.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#105

Post by rexreed »

spurned_dev wrote: post #46
supernova87a wrote: post #37

For all the ire on this site about the likes of Google, Apple, etc. screwing over the small company with their 30% app store fee, why isn't there even more outrage over the founders and startups who screw over their even more deserving-of-help employees? You know, the employees who get subjected to unregulated dilution, tyrannical bosses, unreasonable hours and unclear compensation for trading off the prime years of…

Oh gonna need a throwaway for this one. I had an exit interview where the founder told me their endgame was to destroy the value of the company to buyback the equity they sold to investors. I've never been more insulted in my life.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face. Destroy the company and then it's worth nothing for anyone. How does that make sense? Founder was better off just quitting and starting a new company from scratch.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#106

Post by pc86 »

PierceJoy wrote: post #93
kerosene wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What typically happens with unions is the agreement will likely contain a salary guideline adhered to most of the time, which diminishes individual leverage.

The unions you are referring to are almost universally for blue collar workers. Most professional athletes are members of unions. Most highly paid actors are members of a union. Neither of those groups have decreased individual leverage. It's unlikely that a union for highly paid white collar workers would closely resemble a union for blue collar workers.

Programmers are much closer to electricians than they are professional football players, though. Athletes and actors have star power, and considerable individual leverage. Tom Cruise is definitely in the Screen Actor's Guild but when's the last time SAG did anything for him? They're there to make sure the lowest end gets their $2k/week.

I get your point and it's a good one, I just think when we're talking about literally 100-200 people negotiating 8 and 9-figure yearly contracts it's an outlier (to say the least).

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#107

Post by chrisseaton »

celticninja wrote: post #99
chrisseaton wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At best, they do what the majority of their members want. Which may be completely at odds with your interests. For example a union of mainly older members voting for pay-by-seniority and damaging younger people’s pay. Democracy in a union can become a tyranny of the majority. That’s one reason many people don’t want unions.

Isn't that democracy everywhere though? And it's still better than any of the alternatives by a significant margin.

> Isn't that democracy everywhere though? And it's still better than any of the alternatives by a significant margin.

Yes it is. Which is fine for something like a country where I don't have any hope of negotiating with the government individually, and where I don't have any choice in which country I'm part of.

But I'm not sure it's what I want for my job, where I can already negotiate directly with my employer, and where I can leave for other options if I don't like the offer. I'm trading one master that I need to persuade and negotiate with (employer) for two (employer and union leaders and their majority block). That sounds worse not better to me.

A union is great if you're part of the majority. If you're part of a minority in some regard... then yikes good luck.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#108

Post by [deleted] »

supernova87a wrote: post #37

For all the ire on this site about the likes of Google, Apple, etc. screwing over the small company with their 30% app store fee, why isn't there even more outrage over the founders and startups who screw over their even more deserving-of-help employees? You know, the employees who get subjected to unregulated dilution, tyrannical bosses, unreasonable hours and unclear compensation for trading off the prime years of…

[deleted]

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#109

Post by paulcole »

te_chris wrote: post #54
throwearlyeng wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish YC with all of its power and influence could try to change things for the better here. Early employees' blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention burning the midnight oil, often go into actualizing the founders' vision. Often these key early hires are alongside the founders working equally hard since day 10 or even day 1. I remember Sam Altman posting lamenting that the most talented engineers are more intereste…

Not sure why reading any of PG’s writing - especially his tweets - would give the impression that he’s anything other than firmly parked on the side of capital in the class war.

Great marketing, branding, and PR. HN commenters so often claim to be fully immune to advertising but they fell for this one hook, line, and sinker.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#110

Post by devonkim »

michaelt wrote: post #86
adrianN wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are democratic entities. They do what their members want them to do.

HOAs are also democratic and owned by their members - yet I hear 10 people complaining about their HOA for every person I hear speaking out in support of them.

HOAs differ vastly in quality due to lack of regulation and a wide range of community challenges and needs. It would be good to get a broad survey of folks in HOAs instead of relying upon anecdata but the lack of regulations make reliable reporting on this surprisingly difficult.

I’ve known some folks with HOAs and I see an inverse correlation with HOA dues and satisfaction which is usually correlated with HOA responsibilities and enforcement. I know folks with a $50 / year HOA and the HOA I was in was about $400 / mo for a condo that was maybe $1800 / mo.

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