101–110 of 114 posts
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UK has the highest tech salaries in Europe and trade unions were buried in the 70s. I am fine if you guys seek protection of unions. But never, ever, ever, interfere with my relations with employers.
> UK has the highest tech salaries in Europe Is that actually true? I always heard that Switzerland had the highest tech compensation in Europe.
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UK has the highest tech salaries in Europe and trade unions were buried in the 70s. I am fine if you guys seek protection of unions. But never, ever, ever, interfere with my relations with employers.
> UK has the highest tech salaries in Europe Is that actually true? I always heard that Switzerland had the highest tech compensation in Europe.
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Thanks very much for the transcript. Relevant quote (mangled grammar in original): We will do anything and everthing to protect and stop any retaliation against you in any legal action the company may bring or anyone else, with that made very clear in the course of these proceedings. At the 1:35 a.m. timestamp. https://archive.org/details/CSPAN_20211006_050100_Facebook_W...
I imagine they might haul Zuckerberg before the committee and spend a few hours asking him variations on "Why are you retaliating against Haugen?"
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The whole peer pressure to join a union thing is a huge turn-off to the whole idea of unions, at least for me. Convince, don’t pressure.
The pressure is a convincer. If you don't care that everyone in the union will hate you and your ability to do work will also be reduced, feel free to scab. If you want work to go smoothly with the union members, you should be in the union
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What about whole management pressure, complete with massively funded astroturf campaigns, threats of layoffs, and mandatory indoctrination sessions, pressuring employees to not join a union? Is that a huge turn-on to the whole idea of unions? If not, why not?
No, similarly, I wouldn’t work for employers that act like that.
2) If a large percentage of employers act like that (and they do) they influence the entire job market.
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The word of mouth circulating around less technical people, is to assume she’s more a PR coup / a corporate plant. Actual whistleblowers don’t get leniency, exit their hideout at 47 looking 80 with dementia, in a wheelchair, portrayed as the most dangerous liability in the world, with two accusations of rape. Anyone not suicided, presented as friendly by the press, does not represent a risk for corporations.
What are you talking about? A recent example would be Theranos, a clearly fraudulent company which was unusually aggressive towards its many whistleblowers (see John Carreyrou's excellent reporting). Theranos legally harassed its whistleblowers, but no-one had to go into hiding for 33 years, and the general view would be that Theranos's unusually aggressive approach has hurt its case rather than helped it. I don't th…
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No, similarly, I wouldn’t work for employers that act like that.
1) How can you prove that a company is not engaging in any secret anti-unionization activity? 2) If a large percentage of employers act like that (and they do) they influence the entire job market.
This seems pretty fluffy. I read through the "Legal Handbook" and it doesn't seem as much like a handbook as it does a long article about what it's like to be a whistleblower, along with some very high level stuff about what it's like to engage a lawyer. Like, a really basic thing here is that the legal advice starts by asking people to evaluate whether the misconduct they're thinking about violates laws. But it prov…
Looking around the site, the handbook is by Ifeoma Ozoma, one of the Pinterest "whistleblowers" who went on a raging PR campaign and (seemingly) has now parlayed it into this consulting company. And here's what they're doing. It's utterly unserious content by a grievance-driven person.
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>why do you seem to imply that unions are an unqualified good? Not OP, but it's been my experience that other than orgasms (and not even always then), nothing is an unqualified good. Does something need to be so in order for you to believe it worthwhile? That may also be a bad read on my part, but I think it's a useful discussion, especially when we're talking about standing up for what's right in the workplace. Beca…
I certainly don't think something needs to be an unqualified good to be worthwhile. However, I often see very little nuance in the presentation of unions; either its proponents present it as an unqualified good, or its opponents present it as an unmitigatable cost. I was originally going to reply with: > My life, by proxy to the afflictions of my loved ones, has certainly been made worse by bad unions. I like the ide…
I don't have much in the way of knowledge or experience to make such recommendations. I have never been a member of a union, and while one member of my family was a union member (he just took it for granted that it was necessary, although he did make significantly more money as a member of that union than before he joined -- although those two situations were in areas thousands of miles apart), I don't have any real insight about that.
I will say that from a historical perspective, unions, and more broadly, the labor movement (at least in the US) had a measurable positive effect on compensation and working conditions.
As for particular unions, it's difficult to say unless one is a member of that union.
I'd expect that there's value in collective bargaining, as it reduces the imbalance of knowledge and power between employers and employees. That said, those who manage/administer unions must have the best interests of their members as a primary focus.
If that isn't the case, a union is likely less of a positive for members.
As I mentioned elsewhere, unions (along with everything else) aren't an unqualified good, but it seems to me that in a market economy, limiting power/knowledge asymmetry make markets both fairer and more efficient.
I suspect that my musings aren't very helpful in terms of your search for other/broader perspectives, but it's really all I have to offer. I wish I could provide more.
That said, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this here, as (at least in my experience) most tech workers reject (as I did for a long time) the idea that collective labor action can benefit us.
As I've aged and gained experience, I've become more convinced that incentivizing fairer markets (the labor market included) and a broader allocation of wealth has a positive effect on economic growth and stability.
That cuts across a broad swathe of policies and incentives, including but not limited to (note that this is US-centric, as I'm an American) broadly raising wages (consumer spending is 70% of the US economy -- more people having more money to spend bolsters that) while incentivizing re-investment instead of accumulation (re-investing in businesses that actually create concrete value, rather than gambling in equities/securities/real estate markets), as well as enhancing the social safety net (if you don't have to worry that your and your kids will be eating from garbage cans and sleeping in cardboard boxes, you're much more likely to act on entrepreneurial ideas you might have) creates a more robust, stable economy that's viable over the medium to long term.
I think that more power for the labor side of the capital/labor can push that forward. And in the long term would be just as beneficial for capital as it is for labor.
I've digressed a bit, but I think that it's useful to look at labor/unions from a broader economic perspective.
Your thoughts?
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>it seems to misidentify the people who the actions are hurting. Huh? How so? How does acknowledging that people of conscience may be distressed and appalled at the harm their company is doing (making their workplace an uncomfortable place) diminish recognition of that harm? I'm not suggesting that we should care only about such workers, I'm suggesting that should care about everyone . Why is that, in your view, inap…
In order to avoid confusion, it requires more specific language than "poor working conditions". Perhaps "morally-injurious working conditions"?
A reasonable point. I guess it really depends on how you define "poor" in this context.
Whether you use adjectives like "poor", "morally-injurious", "stressful" or anything similar, the underlying idea is the same.
That said, I appreciate your take on this. It definitely helps to explicate my thought. Thanks!