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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

#141

Post by Waterfall »

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.

In this scenario, is it better to have one larger Bloc cripple the smaller one?

They are deemed unlawful when you force people to join, teachers freedom of speech was considered violated when they're forced to join but disagree with the demands of the union. Is it fair to be forced to join, your dissenting opinion ignored and pay people who work against your own interests?

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

#142

Post by Waterfall »

MiroF wrote: post #136
solidasparagus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are regular surveys that cover how many people are in unions and the overall perception of unions. The numbers back up the idea that unions are dying and people don't think highly of them.

Really? The majority of Americans are pro-union and a solid majority sees their decline as a bad thing.

It's been declining for decades and over half a century. They didn't know how bad they were. Who supports unions in the US and what majority? Who said that?

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

#143

Post by UncleMeat »

solidasparagus wrote: post #121
UncleMeat wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAG. The NFL Players Union. Just two examples.

But the NFLPA still hurts top performers. The joint negotiating in the NFL absolutely leads to the highest paid players being paid less than they would without a union. The revenue split, the franchise tag, the minimum salary, the rookie pay scale (arguable), and the veteran benefits all lead to less of the pie being available to the top tier players and less negotiating power. The salary escrow provision is a great…

Yes, and democracy hurts the top aristocrats. But we don't tend to view antidemocratic aristocrats very kindly, even if maintaining antidemocratic systems are good for them.

Some people experience less optimal outcomes in a union. Those people are free to resist unionization. What I don't like is the claim that, because some specific high performers can no longer negotiate as well, everybody else should shut up about unionization.

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

#144

Post by UncleMeat »

pc86 wrote: post #140
UncleMeat wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAG. The NFL Players Union. Just two examples.

Someone else brought these two up elsewhere in this thread. Are there no examples of regular people who aren't making tens of millions of dollars a year?

Unions have largely been crushed in the US so if you keep asking for more examples eventually things will run dry.

But the screenwriters guild is another example if you don't want to look for one where top performers are paid eight figure salaries.

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

#145

Post by solidasparagus »

MiroF wrote: post #136
solidasparagus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are regular surveys that cover how many people are in unions and the overall perception of unions. The numbers back up the idea that unions are dying and people don't think highly of them.

Really? The majority of Americans are pro-union and a solid majority sees their decline as a bad thing.

Huh, you're right about the popularity when asked in the abstract. It isn't at the old level of popularity, but support has risen quite a bit in the last few years and is back to a majority. That being said, popularity of a topic is often higher when you talk in the abstract - only 30% of people have 'quite a lot' or a 'great deal' of confidence in unions as an institution which is what I was remembering[1]. Also in that data - only ~40% of people want to see union influence grow.

Membership is definitely tanking.[2]

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/12751/labor-unions.aspx

[2] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2019/union-membership-rate-10-p...

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

#146

Post by harikb »

kelnos wrote: post #43
harikb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they exercised their stock options before they left the company, they receive all details (including executive comp). But they wouldn’t know what the other offer was. Btw this applies to those who are still employees too (if they explicitly bought vested options) My advice to anyone joining a startup - if you have the negotiating power, insists that you must pre-exercise and purchase all options immediately when y…

It's my understanding that early exercise is mainly only useful for tax purposes. You still won't be a shareholder until at least 1 share vests, which for a new employee, likely won't be for a year. Is that incorrect?

Yes, you are right about that. This situation is slightly better with AMT bracket moving up with Trump tax changes. But the basics still apply.

I corrected by saying "vesting rules still apply". But the tax consequence (AMT or otherwise) will discourage one to exercise as the estimated stock price becomes bigger and bigger as the company grows.

If you do month 1: Strike price = $1. Pre-exercise, file 83-b with tax. Pay 0 AMT. You quit after 2 years, get to keep half the shares, company might pay you back the principal for the lost half (yes, there is a risk there)

If you do this 2 year when you quit, may be perceived value of stock is $10. Now you out-of-pocket cost = $1 + AMT tax on (income + $9). Moreover, you probably hate the company when you leave, so even more unlikely you will want to buy your options. I have friends who have lost $100k+ with that attitude.

These days, AMT cut off is much higher, but this could apply to some of the valley's sought after engineers.

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

#147

Post by ideals »

chrisseaton wrote: post #134
celticninja wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think thats the case at all. I am not sure what qualifies as a minority, but the union where I work has been instrumental in ensuring that disabled employees have access to tools they need to do their job and the support they need. They help when restructuring brings redundancies, they negotiate retraining packages for people etc. You have fallen into the Us v Them trap that benefits employers. Your employer d…

> instrumental in ensuring that disabled employees have access to tools they need to do their job and the support they need Accommodating disabled employees is a majority view. The majority of people agree with it. As we said, unions are democratic so how did this action get implemented if it wasn’t a majority view? The problem is when you’re in a minority view. > Your employer does not see you as significantly diffe…

Do you feel you are a top earner in your field? If not, do you think you will become a top earner in your field?

Do you know if you earn more than your colleagues?

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

#148

Post by pontus »

celticninja wrote: post #126
pontus wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many governments have been built in ways to try to mitigate this. For example, in the US we have the electoral college and the Senate (where each state has an equal vote). Not saying I support the electoral college (I don't), but at least there's some thought behind it... Another example is the parliamentary system where each party gets some type of representation in the government and where absolute majorities are r…

not sure those safeguards are working effectively in the US.

Not sure if I necessarily agree that the issue we face in the US has to do with "tyrany of the majority", but even if it does I would never claim that the system is perfect, hence the "try to mitigate this" part of the statement above.

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

#149

Post by ideals »

bartread wrote: post #80
adrianN wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Startups don't have a virtual monopoly on jobs the issue is much less pressing than with app stores. Of course that doesn't mean that programmers shouldn't form a union.

> 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,…

Do you feel you are a top earner in your field? If not, do you think you will become a top earner in your field?

Do you know if you earn more than your colleagues?

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

#150

Post by ideals »

solidasparagus wrote: post #121
UncleMeat wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAG. The NFL Players Union. Just two examples.

But the NFLPA still hurts top performers. The joint negotiating in the NFL absolutely leads to the highest paid players being paid less than they would without a union. The revenue split, the franchise tag, the minimum salary, the rookie pay scale (arguable), and the veteran benefits all lead to less of the pie being available to the top tier players and less negotiating power. The salary escrow provision is a great…

Do you see yourself as becoming a top earner in your field?
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