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Fastmail Employees Form a Union

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Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#6
Unions are fascinating to me.

When you are in a Union, part of your money goes to the union in order to, hopefully, make things better for you. This means the relationship between Union leadership and the Union members is just as important as between Union leadership and the company.

Historically, we have seen Unions bring things like worker safety to the forefront and do numerous things to help people out.

More recently we have seen more of a mixed bag. For example, I was recently talking with someone where the Union negotiated pay/benefits they got was less (before and after union dues) than the surrounding non-union competition.

Note, I'm not saying I'm pro or against unions. Just that they are fascinating to look at and what you see can be nuanced.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#7
As a Fastmail customer: great! More power to them.

If anything, any negative reaction by Fastmail, the corporation will act as a signal for me to start thinking about moving away. You know a company is morally bankrupt if they fight their employees unionizing. I don't think Fastmail will do that though.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#8
post #3

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Because if an employer already treats you well it just adds unneeded bureaucracy. I'm a big fan of unions, but I'm also a big fan of treating employees well. I would hope that my employees would never feel the need to unionize because I already hear their feedback and give them the benefits they want.

Unions create an adversarial relationship between labor and management. That shouldn't be necessary if labor and management are already allies.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#10

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Because software workers should start looking to form unions as large companies take to stagnate wages with large hire/layoff cycles that flood the employment market.

You can't unionize your way to a better economy, that's not how that works.
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