Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 222 posts

Re: Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

#31

Post by gyulai »

impish9208 wrote: post #27

The most interesting bit, IMHO, is this: > In June, Mi­crosoft said it was open to work­ing with any la­bor unions that want to or­ga­nize within its work­force, mak­ing it an out­lier in the tech in­dus­try. Last year Ama­zon.­com Inc. con­tested work­ers’ ef­forts to union­ize. Mi­crosoft has said it would sup­port work­ers at Ac­tivi­sion Bliz­zard Inc. who or­ga­nized last year should its $75 bil­lion deal for th…

What else are they going to say in public? "Our plan is to engage in union-busting as much as we can legally get away with"? And what one company said is then compared to what another company actually did? Come on! This statement doesn't make MS an outlier, it's simply devoid of information content.

Re: Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

#32

Post by impish9208 »

gyulai wrote: post #31
impish9208 wrote: post #27

The most interesting bit, IMHO, is this: > In June, Mi­crosoft said it was open to work­ing with any la­bor unions that want to or­ga­nize within its work­force, mak­ing it an out­lier in the tech in­dus­try. Last year Ama­zon.­com Inc. con­tested work­ers’ ef­forts to union­ize. Mi­crosoft has said it would sup­port work­ers at Ac­tivi­sion Bliz­zard Inc. who or­ga­nized last year should its $75 bil­lion deal for th…

What else are they going to say in public? "Our plan is to engage in union-busting as much as we can legally get away with"? And what one company said is then compared to what another company actually did? Come on! This statement doesn't make MS an outlier, it's simply devoid of information content.

Well, the president of CWA (the union) also praises them:

    > “Mi­crosoft has lived up to its com­mit­ment to its work­ers and let them de­cide for them­selves whether they want a union,” CWA Pres­i­dent Chris Shel­ton said. “Other videogame and tech gi­ants have made a con­scious choice to at­tack, un­der­mine, and de­mor­al­ize their own em­ploy­ees when they join to­gether to form a union.”

Re: Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

#33

Post by nemo44x »

RupertWiser wrote: post #16
thunky wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason for this dangerous combo? You’re working your dream job. Doesn't that make it a fair trade? Musicians generally don't make a killing either.

I’m not sure it’s fair if the product ends up making a boat loads of money. Games are high risk but a very lucrative industry. Just look at how successful football players were in getting a slice of the pie. I’d still consider that a dream job.

Football players aren’t replaceable. At least not at the level people are willing to pay too dollar to watch.

Re: Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

#35

Post by tored »

lettergram wrote: post #7
yakattak wrote: post #4

Game companies need this. It’s one of the “software engineering” adjacent subfields that is extremely exploited. The salaries are low, the work is stressful, crunch is high. The reason for this dangerous combo? You’re working your dream job. This is good, I hope the employees at ActivisionBlizzard can finalize their union if they’re purchased by Microsoft.

Have you ever worked in a company with a union? Look what just happened to the railroad workers. The US government forced them back to work and gave everything to the companies. Unions are effectively a corporation running labor. So you go from working for the company to working for your union rep. They then pimp you out and get kick backs. Wanna leave your job for another company or role? Good luck, you drop in seni…

I think the problem here is that US lacks a larger framework how unions and employers should solve differences.

Sweden enacted in 1938 (Saltsjöbadsavtalet) a treaty where unions, employers and the government came to an agreement that agreements between unions and employers should be done without government interference. Instead of conflict try instead to find common ground where both parties benefits.

It is of course far from perfect, but I think it is still better than the alternative.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltsj%C3%B6baden_Agreement

Re: Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

#36

Post by readams »

RupertWiser wrote: post #16
thunky wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason for this dangerous combo? You’re working your dream job. Doesn't that make it a fair trade? Musicians generally don't make a killing either.

I’m not sure it’s fair if the product ends up making a boat loads of money. Games are high risk but a very lucrative industry. Just look at how successful football players were in getting a slice of the pie. I’d still consider that a dream job.

Worth noting that Football is a legal cartel, explicitly excluded from antitrust law. You can't really extrapolate much from it as an example.

Re: Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

#37

Post by PicassoCTs »

yakattak wrote: post #4

Game companies need this. It’s one of the “software engineering” adjacent subfields that is extremely exploited. The salaries are low, the work is stressful, crunch is high. The reason for this dangerous combo? You’re working your dream job. This is good, I hope the employees at ActivisionBlizzard can finalize their union if they’re purchased by Microsoft.

I always try to see into the eyes of all those "stars", "project-managers" and "pr"-talkers, as they try to entice the next generation to wreck themselves, to keep the scam going. Hollywood, Paris, Gamer-town, the beast hungers for fresh flesh and minds. And even if you make it, it will be due to feeding the next generation into the grinder.

Re: Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

#38

Post by lettergram »

rayiner wrote: post #21
modo_mario wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it weird that nobody in the US seems to look beyond their country or similar systems for different models regarding this. Here in Belgium we have some industry specific unions like for rail (idk how the government in the US forces em to do anything). But most unions are cross industry. They aren't really noticed when working in the context of a specific company too often unless mediation is needed when big lay…

> I find it weird that nobody in the US seems to look beyond their country or similar systems for different models regarding this. Looking to European models would be great. But the current American union structure is written into federal statute, and there is approximately zero chance of the statute ever being amended.

> Looking to European models would be great.

Europeans on average earn half of Americans

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_b...

Software engineers make 4x or more their European counterparts

If unions were effective I’d expect at least somewhat comparable wages… but that’s not the case.

Is it time off it optimized for? I mean that might be fine, but that also means as a union worker you can’t work more and make more. You’re stuck with what the union negotiated.

American unions definitely have their issues. That’s mostly where I’m coming from.

But even European ones, from the data (I’ve never experienced one), doesn’t seem effective.

Re: Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

#39

Post by bluGill »

maxehmookau wrote: post #18
dmitriid wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you end up like Europe. With long maternity leave, paid sick days, overtime pay etc.

Posts about unions on HN always skew towards negativity because in the US, unions are seen as bad. (Well done corporate america for that PR coup!) They often can't see the benefits, which are often large and numerous.

Unions in the US are bad, in large part because of laws written to force things that way. Unions in Europe work different, but we legally cannot have that type of union so there is no point in discussing how unions don't have to be bad.

Re: Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

#40

Post by [deleted] »

dmitriid wrote: post #9
lettergram wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever worked in a company with a union? Look what just happened to the railroad workers. The US government forced them back to work and gave everything to the companies. Unions are effectively a corporation running labor. So you go from working for the company to working for your union rep. They then pimp you out and get kick backs. Wanna leave your job for another company or role? Good luck, you drop in seni…

Or you end up like Europe. With long maternity leave, paid sick days, overtime pay etc.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN