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Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

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Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#211

Post by FrustratedMonky »

torginus wrote: post #201
podgorniy wrote: post #20

Good for them. During economic downturns, when fewer resources are available for redistribution, collective action across population groups can help address worsening power imbalances.

Well, this economic downturn might have something to do with the games industry continuing to push out products that nobody wanted (or were no good in the first place) at absolutely lavish budgets. It didn't seemingly come out of nowhere. Cue Concorde. If you spend half a billion, to make a game that's five multiplayer maps, fail to do any market research, to find out that the part of your audience that isn't indiffe…

There are movie flops, yet also there is an actors union. Workers are allowed to be paid even if management makes bad decisions. The company can go bankrupt, doesn't mean workers shouldn't get paid.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#212

Post by popalchemist »

seneca wrote: post #68
c-hendricks wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement wasn't really pro or against unions. Simply put, if your company can only survive while exploiting its workers it shouldn't survive. Whether that's due to constant turnover from poor treatment of their employees, or due to union strikes, doesn't change the statement.

That's not at all what the statement I replied to says in context. hellojesus said "There is always the chance that the collective action discounts the impact to the business too heavily and ends up driving the company under, making the outcomes worse for everyone." popalchemist said "If the company's existence depends on the unfair exploitation of its staff, its foreclosure is inevitable and justified" That response…

That is not my implication, you are reading it incorrectly. The above commenter is reading it correctly.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#213

Post by qwe----3 »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #211
torginus wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this economic downturn might have something to do with the games industry continuing to push out products that nobody wanted (or were no good in the first place) at absolutely lavish budgets. It didn't seemingly come out of nowhere. Cue Concorde. If you spend half a billion, to make a game that's five multiplayer maps, fail to do any market research, to find out that the part of your audience that isn't indiffe…

There are movie flops, yet also there is an actors union. Workers are allowed to be paid even if management makes bad decisions. The company can go bankrupt, doesn't mean workers shouldn't get paid.

Aren't less movies now being made in hollywood? Seems

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#214

Post by FrustratedMonky »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #47
popalchemist wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company's existence depends on the unfair exploitation of its staff, its foreclosure is inevitable and justified, and that is simply the price everyone involved must pay to maintain equilibrium.

Perhaps. But that's cold comfort to someone who doesn't have a job because the company went out of business. You would have to be an enormous asshole to say "it'll result in a better equilibrium" to someone who just lost his job.

Cold comfort.

Like with full time employed Walmart employees that qualify as homeless. Are they happy because they have a job, since poor old Walmart might go under if they were forced to pay a real salary?

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#215

Post by autoexec »

jimbokun wrote: post #185
popalchemist wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company's existence depends on the unfair exploitation of its staff, its foreclosure is inevitable and justified, and that is simply the price everyone involved must pay to maintain equilibrium.

[flagged]

> There are lots of outcomes where having the wages the company can profitably offer are far better than having zero wages.

Like sweatshops for example. The idea that getting anything at all is far better than getting nothing is not new or compelling. It's exactly that kind of race to the bottom mentality where workers are expected to shut up and take whatever scraps their masters give them that causes labor movements to rise up and start demanding better.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#216

Post by Manuel_D »

Daishiman wrote: post #170
Manuel_D wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's keeping any one of these Id software developers from accepting a competing job offer elsewhere? Yes, there are scenarios where employees are stripped of agency. E.g a factory owner taking and holding foreign worker's passports. But if you're going to allege that something is preventing these works from accepting competing offers, you have to offer evidence for that claim.

> What's keeping any one of these Id software developers from accepting a competing job offer elsewhere? * Employer-bound health insurance in the US * Industry blacklists to exclude uppity employees and union members * Noncompetes and NDAs * Extremely localized jobs and an ever-shrinking number of larger and larger conglomerates as employers

> Employer-bound health insurance in the US

Benefits are part of an employees compensation package. A competing offer could have even better healthcare than Id.

> Industry blacklists to exclude uppity employees and union members.

This is illegal and the last time SV companies were found doing this the government punished them

Is there any evidence that this is happening to Id employees?

> Noncompetes

Illegal in CA where ID is based. NDAs don't prevent you from working at competitors, only from taking confidential info.

> Extremely localized jobs and an ever-shrinking number of larger and larger conglomerates as employers.

Id is located in the Bay Area, probably the place with the greatest concentration of software jobs in the country if not the world.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#217

Post by popalchemist »

scrollaway wrote: post #46
popalchemist wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company's existence depends on the unfair exploitation of its staff, its foreclosure is inevitable and justified, and that is simply the price everyone involved must pay to maintain equilibrium.

Your theory only holds in the case that there is unfair exploitation happening. This is not that easy to define beyond salary averages…

The scope of the "theory" is precisely limited to exactly that scenario... so, yeah.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#218

Post by FrustratedMonky »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #86
overfeed wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that's cold comfort to someone who doesn't have a job because the company went out of business I suppose only those who lose their jobs because of a merger, or the CEO making poor decisions ought to get the warm and fuzzies because someone on the Internet won't blame them for their own misfortune. Somewhere on the spectrum between "egalitarian, flat organization Utopia" and "Slavery", one has to draw a line whe…

You forgot that collective ruin is also an option and we have seen this many times when societies attempted to do away with economic & market concepts.

Paying employees is part of the market. Why is the counter argument, that we should not pay employees even a thing these days?

Ask yourself: Why is a paycheck now consider socialist re-distribution of wealth.

Could it be because literally lives are cheap.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#219

Post by echelon »

frmersdog wrote: post #203
echelon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, this will result in more jobs being offshored. Hollywood unions were a sticking point. In 2022 and 2023, following the lead of Netflix and Amazon, most of those jobs moved from the US to Europe and Asia. Atlanta, which was booming for nearly two decades, which had built dozens of $500M class-A film production studios, is suddenly almost entirely vacant. We went from doing almost all of Marvel and Netflix to bei…

*chomping at the bit. Ironically, China has also proven that you can't easily import expertise. At best, you can "steal" it over a long period of being the current industrial center's gopher.

The film case is kind of wild.

Amazon, Netflix, et al. flew domestic crews to Europe to train their crews how to work. This wasn't unusual, because a lot of movies filmed on-location overseas. Nobody questions that. Par for the course.

Except they trained local crews how to do everything - they trained their replacements in person. And now there are no US domestic crew flights to Europe and Asia.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#220

Post by AnthonyMouse »

vkou wrote: post #90
appreciatorBus wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot that collective ruin is also an option and we have seen this many times when societies attempted to do away with economic & market concepts.

We've also seen collective ruin many many times when societies have embraced economic and market concepts. Seen the rust belt anytime lately?

That's probably not a great example given that the rust belt was thick with unions.

And in general the US has a cost of living problem because the various levels of government keep getting captured by people who want regulations that make costs to go up because they're the ones getting the money. That makes US workers less competitive because of the corruption-induced regulatory costs, which is exactly the opposite of markets working as they should, except insofar as "industries move out of countries with high corruption and inefficient laws" is supposed to apply pressure to countries to get more efficient rules.

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