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Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

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Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#371

Post by johnnyanmac »

gotostatement wrote: post #145
cs702 wrote: post #81

Clickbait title for a highly opinonated piece that would never see the light of day in a respectable publication like the Washington Post, WSJ, NYT, Economist, etc. WilmerHale is a well-known top-100 law firm with a long history -- it's definitely not a "notorious union-busting firm." I'm flagging this story because it doesn't belong on the front page of HN, IMHO.

Their own website lists one of their areas of expertise as "advising on union awareness and avoidance" https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/solutions/labor-and-employment Under "Executive and Workforce Training" tab

yes, one of their areas. Now what area are activision utilizing?

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#372

Post by johnnyanmac »

walshemj wrote: post #113
disposableuname wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're a biglaw firm, which has its hands in many, many fields. If WilmerHale had anything resembling a specialty, it would corporate/finance law.

Real white shoe big law wont really want to do union busting

Thats not how lawyers work. No more so than "REAL tech companies wouldn't work on crappy javascript libraries".

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#373

Post by johnnyanmac »

juped wrote: post #22
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #9

WilmerHale is not a notorious union-busting firm. The older set might know their work from A Civil Action, and their grandparents might remember the phrase that turned the red scare, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"[1] The marketing material is unfortunate, though, and the connection with Amazon labor work is notable. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmer_Cutler_Pickering_Hale...

yeah they're just biglaw, any biglaw firm does everything

yup. Unfortunately I think the clickbait headline did its job. Even here on HN where I'd expect better. I guess no site is immune to kneejerk reactions.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#374

Post by user-the-name »

nate_meurer wrote: post #361
user-the-name wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are somehow turning a remote possibility into a near-certainty in this argument.

There's more than a remote possibility that anyone you think is worth learning from has done or said things that other people consider awful. Your logic is exactly the reason many people tell us we shouldn't bother learning too much about, say, the founders of American democracy.

Why do you care with "other people" think?

You should have a strong moral compass, and you should be able to tell right from wrong, and awful from decent. And you should let that compass guide you in everything you do, including who you give the precious resource that is your attention to.

Framing it as "other people consider awful" makes it sound like you do not actually agree that awful people are all that bad, and that is a moral failing on your part.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#375

Post by fourtrees »

username90 wrote: post #353
fourtrees wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go further: many people died because the healthcare industry has embraced efficiency (likely not the precisely right word) at the expense of robustness.

The healthcare industry used exactly that argument to bottleneck the economy and create a lot of inefficiencies so healthcare can't be provided to everyone. Lots of lives would be saved if it got a lot easier for immigrant doctors to practice, but that would be too efficient and not "robust" enough so they can't do it.

I agree that immigrant doctors should have an easier time practicing (and that we should be producing more doctors regardless of their origin). I think that the overall lack of qualified medical workers did lead to unnecessary deaths during the worst of the pandemic.

I think a robustness/efficiency dichotomy isn't the right way to look at this. One doesn't preclude the other. A medical system that is both efficient and robust is certainly possible. This discussion deserves its own thread.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#376

Post by nate_meurer »

user-the-name wrote: post #374
nate_meurer wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more than a remote possibility that anyone you think is worth learning from has done or said things that other people consider awful. Your logic is exactly the reason many people tell us we shouldn't bother learning too much about, say, the founders of American democracy.

Why do you care with "other people" think? You should have a strong moral compass, and you should be able to tell right from wrong, and awful from decent. And you should let that compass guide you in everything you do, including who you give the precious resource that is your attention to. Framing it as "other people consider awful" makes it sound like you do not actually agree that awful people are all that bad, and…

No, you completely missed the point.

Everybody has done and said awful things. If you don't want to read the works of sinners, then you won't be able to learn from anyone.

My example highlighted folks like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, unrepentant slaveholders who happen to be keystones of American democracy. They said and did awful things in life. Do you think therefore that you have nothing to learn from them?

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#377

Post by smolder »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #317
smolder wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit like Paladins. It has elements of TF2. Regardless, compared to games in genres like battle royale or real time strategy, or more traditional first person shooter, Overwatch is pretty lonely. I don't want to sound like I'm frothing at the mouth over their product, but I feel that it's well beyond any other first person game in terms of the variety of heroes to play and the huge scope of the balancing act th…

I'd say that the hero variety wasn't a good thing honestly, they never did a great job of balancing it. They shut down duplicate heros, then the game lurched from one overpowered unpopular meta to another until it got stuck on goats meta and they gave up and forced 222 team comps, which is when I stopped playing. There's a good reason other hero shooters kept the scope low, noone knows how to balance a high scope gam…

Fair criticism, I guess. I think the state of balance is very good right now, it's just a highly cooperative game with specialized roles.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#378

Post by fabianhjr »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #370
fabianhjr wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Union busting is an historic and recognized practice of limiting the freemdom of association of workers and collective action. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Union_busting

yes... and there's no proof that this is what they were hired for. The people they hired aren't in that sector. I'm actually starting to doubt how many people here hold jobs in specializations. We should understand already that prgramming isn't equivalent to IT fixing a friend's computer. You're doing the equivalent here with lawyers.

Union busting is mostly discussed from a sociological/historical perspective not a legal one. (The wikipedia article provided mentions that it encompasses both legal and illegal activities as well as subtle and overt practices)

Not sure what "I am doing the equivalent of" to lawyers. (Other than legalistic ones; those that adhere to western legalism)

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#379

Post by rareform »

Symbiote wrote: post #98
rareform wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't even access this site at my University due to it being a newly registered domain. From WHOIS: `Creation Date: 2021-06-29T18:05:15`

Why would a month-old domain cause a problem for access?

NetOPs has an annoying set of firewall rules. Something like < 3 months registered cannot be accessed, along with a chunk of 'cheap' or 'scammy' TLDs like '.xyz' and the like
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