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

Fastmail Employees Form a Union

union.place

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 303 posts

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#211

Post by VirusNewbie »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #64
brightball wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as there's an option to not be in the union, it's completely fine IMO. In a free market, the best option will win. When non-union jobs are better than union jobs the need for the union should vanish (in theory).

It's not a free market. Corporations perform collective bargaining. Eliminate collective bargaining for a corporations, and then it would make sense to see things on an equal playing field. The reason why employees jump from one company to another for salary boosts is because a corporation collectively bargains for salary, and this happens less so between different companies. When an employee can just as easily pit o…

If you think collective bargaining has happened with corporations, why has pay at all these non union companies skyrocketed in the last five years? You're evidence is showing things are going extremely well and that the market is working wonderfully, especially for software engineers.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#212

Post by smsm42 »

elektor wrote: post #9

Congrats to the team! This might be the reminder I needed to finally subscribe. Gmail’s spam filter has been nonexistent for the past month (300+ clearly spammy email reaching my inbox).

I just had the reverse problem - gmail decided to stuff half of the mail for 2 days into spam, and I had to spend half an hour manually extracting them back. No idea what happened, most mails were from previously known good addresses. That said, I rarely get spam that's not intercepted nowadays, no more that 1-2 per day.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#213

Post by bluGill »

burkaman wrote: post #203
bluGill wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One more reason health care should not be employer subsidized. You want insurance (and you should), go buy it: same as you get car and house/apartment insurance.

I agree that healthcare should not be employer subsidized, but I don't think there is any country in the world where you just go out and buy it like car insurance. Almost everywhere in the world it is a baseline government service, and in some rare cases it is a private service but heavily subsidized by the government when necessary. If I could replace the US system with something I would choose one of those options.

You can just go out an buy health insurance in the US, but it is typically a horrible deal. If you have a job odds are your company is putting in thousands of dollars if you go with their plan, get any other plan and you lose all the money. Self employed people do this all the time (generally via the exchanges), as do people who don't work enough hours to get employer health care (the later often get low income subsidies not available to most people).

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#214

Post by pseudalopex »

stale2002 wrote: post #179
BobaFloutist wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the market is free, why can't employees decide to group together and negotiate a contract with a company that precludes the hiring of non-union employees? Sounds like freedom of association with me. You wouldn't complain about a corporation signing an exclusive contract with another corporation (even for supplying labor), why is it a problem when it's a collective of workers imposing that restriction rather than a…

> If the market is free, why can't employees decide to group together and negotiate a contract with a company that precludes the hiring of non-union employees? > Sounds like freedom of association with me. Hey as long as it goes both ways. It would equally be freedom of association to fire any union employees. Oh wait, that's illegal. So instead of that, a fair compromise is that it should be equally illegal for firi…

> That's what right to work laws do. They give equal protections to both union and non union employees.

No. Federal law and jurisprudence prohibit making union membership a condition of employment but compel unions to represent non members. So called right to work laws allow non members to withhold payment for the compelled representation.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#216

Post by tshirthoodie »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #70
coldpie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions don't always indicate there is a problem in need of solving. It's just a group of employees agreeing to bargain collectively with their employer, which helps balance out the negotiation power between employees and the employer and creates a stable, well-defined employment relationship.

I struggle to imagine a scenario where employees would unionize despite already feeling like they are treated fairly. The union/employer relationship is inherently hostile. The whole idea is that unionized employees can threaten production/profits as negotiation leverage. Choosing that path means the employees have already given up on cooperation based on goodwill. It must take a very sour relationship to reach that…

> The union/employer relationship is inherently hostile. The whole idea is that unionized employees can threaten production/profits as negotiation leverage.

The boss/employer relationship is inherently hostile. The whole idea is that bosses can threaten employment/wages as negotiation leverage.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#217

Post by pseudalopex »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #205
brightball wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most countries, I would imagine any agreement that prevented the hiring of a specific group of people would run afoul of discrimination laws.

In the United States, that only applies to specifically discriminating against protected classes. It would not apply to my hypothetical, except that "right-to-work" laws in many states specifically prohibit unions and corporations from making exclusive hiring agreements.

Federal law and jurisprudence prohibit unions and corporations from making exclusive hiring agreements. So called right to work laws allow non members to opt out of paying for the representation unions are compelled to provide.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#218

Post by [deleted] »

bluGill wrote: post #199
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US-Finland expat here, and yes, I quite like my union. But I especially like my unemployment fund: 100 euros a year gets me 50% of my pre-tax salary for a year if I lose or leave my job. Unemployment insurance plans seem underrated in general by FTEs, both in the US and elsewhere. Without it, your ability to exercise both halves of "voice or exit" in the corporate world are severely curtailed. Like life insurance, it…

$100 euros a year does not get you 50% of your pre-tax salary for a year. That 100 might be what you paid, but that is not anywhere close to what that costs. Do not confuse the cost of something with the price you pay. At 100 per year they should just make it free. I'm not sure what the real cost of unemployment is per year (there are people who's job it is to figure this out - they have more data than me), but it is…

[deleted]

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#219

Post by shortrounddev2 »

r2_pilot wrote: post #112
barbazoo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fiduciary duty to do so Is that actually so?

I would argue they have a fiduciary duty to NOT do so, as "unfair labor practices" are illegal per the National Labor Relations Act.

You don't need to have unfair labor practices to oppose a union from forming at your company

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#220

Post by shortrounddev2 »

rini17 wrote: post #88
shortrounddev2 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know a company is morally bankrupt if they fight their employees unionizing Any company would oppose their employees unionizing; they have a fiduciary duty to do so

Everyone has a duty to maintain human dignity, too.

Not when acting in the capacity of the CEO of a company
Post reply on HN