New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat
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Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat
#2In all fairness, it is not as if anyone is going to put up a big protest in the current economic circumstances. Not even Facebook employees can find another job easily in the current environment.
With 40+ million or so unemployed, and no end in sight for COVID at the moment, Zuckerberg can get away with whatever he wants over the next few months. "Never let a good crisis go to waste", as the saying goes.
So FB employees will follow what I call MZM - Mark Zuckerberg Method. Pretend like you care for a while, wait for people's short attention spans to automatically move on to the next big scandal, and then make the scandal of the day as the "new normal".
Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat
#3>>Section 1: The policy of the United States is to be carried out "by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment..."
Section 7: "Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or bargain collectively through representation of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining..."
Section 8(a): "It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer . . . to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7..."
From https://www.ueunion.org/org_rights.html
Looks like that would be illegal to my non-lawyer interpretation.
Worse happens every day, this would be extremely evident though.
Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat
#4Unionize!
Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat
#5In all fairness, it is not as if anyone is going to put up a big protest in the current economic circumstances. Not even Facebook employees can find another job easily in the current environment. With 40+ million or so unemployed, and no end in sight for COVID at the moment, Zuckerberg can get away with whatever he wants over the next few months. "Never let a good crisis go to waste", as the saying goes. So FB employ…
This tool is something that Facebook is trying to sell. To other companies. So you're missing the point with your superficial speculation as to the balance of power between Facebook and its employees.
For that reason, I'll keep the rebuttal short: laws are still valid, as far as I know. And this tool is blatantly illegal. Facebook employees also don't typically face starvation if they can't find a new job right away. And considering how rare unions are in the tech sector, and how common they are in, for example, automotive, my hunch is unionisation is more likely to happen at companies facing economic pressure.
Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat
#6Clickbait title. The tool allows banning any word. There's nothing special about unionize in the tool.
Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat
#7In all fairness, it is not as if anyone is going to put up a big protest in the current economic circumstances. Not even Facebook employees can find another job easily in the current environment. With 40+ million or so unemployed, and no end in sight for COVID at the moment, Zuckerberg can get away with whatever he wants over the next few months. "Never let a good crisis go to waste", as the saying goes. So FB employ…
I agree with the other reply to you, but to address your point directly, it is probably true that a lot of the frontline workforce can't afford to leave, but the people in leadership positions and very high-level/well-respected ICs still have options (including, given given FB's pay and recent stock performance, the option of not necessarily needing to work). That's a small group but each departure would be noticed and they'd have plenty of leverage.
Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat
#8Not on the topic of Facebook, but on employers who fear these trends so much that they want this level of control:
Fundamental social shifts cannot be nipped in the bud. The best anyone can do is understand them and ensure the changes are gradual, rather than letting them build-up to a big bang.
This is an oversimplification, but: early 20th century rise of communism was a violent backlash against the presiding monarchies and oligarchies who suppressed all attempts at gradual reform. Dissatisfaction with growing wealth disparity at the time was a fundamental trend that could not have been "nipped in the bud".
The current trend seems to be very reminiscent of this. When those in power suppress all avenues of gradual reform, fundamental trends tend to boil over in abrupt and often destructive forms.
Only question is: is what we're seeing today just a passing trend or a fundamental shift?
Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat
#9Unionize!
It's the only way to bring inorganics down to parts-per-billion.
(what do we want? 18,2 MΩ cm! when do we want it? on demand!)
Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat
#10Clickbait title. The tool allows banning any word. There's nothing special about unionize in the tool.
There's one special aspect to "unionize": according to the article it was the word Facebook chose to use as an example in a presentation. If that's true, this title seems rather fair.