51–60 of 313 posts
Love that someone in tech is finally getting unions in tech, don't love that it was kickstarter though. Their corporate culture is very toxic and I don't see them sticking around long term. It might be just me but my impression of kickstarter is that they are some of the worst offenders of 'maximum virtue signaling, minimum virtue'. That makes me inherently skeptical of a move like this.
Big no thanks to this. If you hate where you work this much, improve yourself and work somewhere else. Replacing at-will with "just cause", progressive disciplining, with criteria for performance improvement plans. If you're three years into a career in tech (technical or not) and you haven't figured out that being PIP'd or indirectly told you're fucking up - making this language "nicer" isn't going to help anyone. A…
Why does organizing mean you hate your workplace? Organizing means you want more power, more control. Also, there are many dimensions to liking or disliking your workplace. You may love the product your working on. You may really like your colleagues. You may also love the office environment. However, you may dislike the amount of vacation days, the lack of ability to work part time or the lack of paternal leave. Wor…
Admittedly, I was able to work on some very cool shit at Amazon - however the job made me hate my life.
Ergo - adult logical cycles were spent, decided to get a new job after leetcoding for a bit.
The people who aren't skilled enough to get new jobs or improve themselves (also holds true in any industry) will always be some degree of fucked. I admit, some unions are good, but engaging in a system that grants most benefit to people not willing to improve or make the bar of performance set by the industry isn't good for anyone involved. That said, never work for a place that makes you hate your life. And yes... having the ability to make that choice is a privilege.
Smaller and wide set of unions in an industry can be effective, but industry wide unions are effectively a monopoly on labor supply and bad for society. Look no further than the MTA in NYC.
Terrible cost overruns and bad governance of the subway system, for what? So employees can clock extra hours and get egregiously overpaid? No thanks.
Competitive markets produce societally best outcomes, as is proven time and time again throughout history. Competition applies to labor too, by the way
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you be happy with a 3% raise any year in tech?
> Minimum means the least you can do of something. For example, if the minimum amount of dollars you must pay for something is seven, then you cannot pay six dollars or less (you must pay at least seven). You can do more than the minimum, but no less. [0] [0]: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_and_minimum
Love that someone in tech is finally getting unions in tech, don't love that it was kickstarter though. Their corporate culture is very toxic and I don't see them sticking around long term. It might be just me but my impression of kickstarter is that they are some of the worst offenders of 'maximum virtue signaling, minimum virtue'. That makes me inherently skeptical of a move like this.
I think they changed CEO recently, no? It seems like the ex-CEO, one of the founder, wasn't "a good cultural fit" after all. They had a round of layoffs a few years ago where some activist employees were weeded out, seems like it didn't work.
Kickstarter also voted itself to become a Public Benefits Corporation [1] so you would hope they were already out in front of ensuring contributor rights are fairly represented in concert with other stakeholders. [1] https://medium.com/kickstarter/kickstarter-is-a-pbc-heres-wh...
Definitely wouldn't want to be part of a union. I represent myself, thanks. Smaller and wide set of unions in an industry can be effective, but industry wide unions are effectively a monopoly on labor supply and bad for society. Look no further than the MTA in NYC. Terrible cost overruns and bad governance of the subway system, for what? So employees can clock extra hours and get egregiously overpaid? No thanks. Comp…
This is fantastic. Kudos to them. Copying some things they won, for the non-clickers: - Minimum 3% annual CoL raises - Profit-sharing bonuses - Putting their current benefits in the contract, so management will have to re-negotiate if they want to make them worse. - Replacing at-will with "just cause", progressive disciplining, with criteria for performance improvement plans. Looking forward to more details & seeing…
> Replacing at-will with "just cause", progressive disciplining, with criteria for performance improvement plans. What does "progressive disciplining" mean? I like the idea of criteria for being pipped, though I wonder if Kickstarter had a pip culture like Amazon.
These sorts of policies don't generally mean that, for extreme circumstances, larger punishments can't be used, just that you can't start with a harsh punishment for a mild issue.
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* Great Chinese Famine[2]
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Sovi....