101–110 of 120 posts
Fix the title: coop -> co-op The abbreviation for "cooperative" is always spelled with a hyphen.
There are actually really interesting tech intersections here, possibly. 8 years ago I published an article[1] that ended with some speculation about the possibility of automating organized consumer action to permit, for example, people to coordinate to force companies to drop abusive terms in contracts. The co-op model is in the same family. Back in the day, my basic idea was basically this: the reason that consumer…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> These days I definitely believe that something needs to take up the role of fighting for the rights of labor, but I remain skeptical that unions, at least as they exist in the US, are the right tool for the job. What would you say are the highest salaried professions in the US outside of management/executive roles that would obviously not be a part of unions? I think most Americans would probably list athletes and…
> both of which famously have powerful unions. It depends. The NFLPA is famously powerless. Domonique Foxworth (former NFLPA President) has long argued it should decertify and reorganize as a trade association because it doesn't work like a traditional labor union.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll never understand why so many tech workers are so strongly against the idea of unions. I've yet to encounter a criticism that doesn't essentially stem from criticism of blue-collar unions, and regardless of whether I agree with those criticisms or not, almost none of them seem to be universally true of unions. People seem to be worried about either a small minority of vocal outliers driving the policy or collecti…
> I'll never understand why so many tech workers are so strongly against the idea of unions. Tech attracts a lot of "undesirables", for want of a better word, and there is no great way to separate them from the quality people you'd actually want to have a union with. The MLB union works exceptionally well because the business naturally screens out anyone who isn't in the upper echelons of baseball society. Try advoca…
I've seen many co-ops fail. They never address the long-tail nature of productivity, perhaps to not offend people or because most people can't admit it or even understand it. Popular loudmouths take power. Quiet competent people leave. Co-op slowly dies. This negative cycle is even more pathological in co-ops than in a normal corporation/for profit. I hope some day someone figures a better way.
do you think neutral ai moderation and time limits on discussion would have the desired effect?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'll never understand why so many tech workers are so strongly against the idea of unions. Tech attracts a lot of "undesirables", for want of a better word, and there is no great way to separate them from the quality people you'd actually want to have a union with. The MLB union works exceptionally well because the business naturally screens out anyone who isn't in the upper echelons of baseball society. Try advoca…
I'm not sure I find that argument super compelling, since the union campaigns for software engineers (or more specifically game developers, since that seems to be where most of the recent examples are) do not seem to start out by organizing at the national level but usually at individual employers or even a specific office location. If we were drowning in software jobs the way you describe, why would anyone tolerate…
I am not sure I follow your thinking here. We would be (or at least would have been until recently; the market is much less clear now) drowning in software jobs if businesses were only willing to hire the "MLB superstars" of the tech world. We have never drowned in software jobs because businesses have been willing to hire warm bodies for where the "MLB superstars" weren't available. To be clear, I said "The need for tech workers is larger than the number of quality people", not "The need for tech workers is larger than the number of people".
> I would be reluctant to associate with them; after all, that's what I'm already doing!
You may work together, but would you want to start a business with them? That is what a union ultimately is, after all: A group of people who have come together to want to sell labor under an organization instead of individually.
The thing is that working together when you're not the stakeholder is quite easy because the stakeholder has to deal with the shit. Things get real when it is only you and your fellow brethren. That's not to say that it wouldn't work in your particular situation. There are going to be pockets where the stars have aligned. But no doubt you have already formed a union with your coworkers if you have the necessary mutual trust. I mean, why wouldn't you in such a case?
(If you are game but your coworkers are the ones who are reluctant, remember it is you who is the "yahoo")
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plus or minus tiny details, the description from the article: A demand co-op is a cooperative that pools and directs the spending power of its members. Demand determines what gets built, who survives, and where wealth flows. Most communities already have enormous spending power, but because that demand is unorganized, the value created from it is captured by outside businesses and investors. A demand co-op coordinate…
Thank you for sharing. I'm also familiar with Mondragon in Spain as a cooperative - similarly an agricultural one primarily. When I said "here" in the sentences " ...there must be 100 people like this here on this forum in the US. Can they point me to one such one here... " I was referring to the US.
There's nothing preventing co-ops from operating in the US other than culture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure I find that argument super compelling, since the union campaigns for software engineers (or more specifically game developers, since that seems to be where most of the recent examples are) do not seem to start out by organizing at the national level but usually at individual employers or even a specific office location. If we were drowning in software jobs the way you describe, why would anyone tolerate…
> If we were drowning in software jobs the way you describe, why would anyone tolerate having such awful coworkers at their office instead of finding somewhere better? I am not sure I follow your thinking here. We would be (or at least would have been until recently; the market is much less clear now) drowning in software jobs if businesses were only willing to hire the "MLB superstars" of the tech world. We have nev…
My livelihood already depends on their work, though, because they far outnumber me! (I've never worked at a company with two or fewer total people working for it). I'd argue that if you've signed a lease, mortgaged a house, or any number of any extremely mundane things that rely on "the people I work with won't literally cause me to be unable to receive income in the short- to medium-term future because of how recklessly incompetent they are", you're clearly pretty comfortable with the idea as well.
The question then becomes whether you think that the only reason they manage to not cause everything to crash and burn is because they have far less relative power to the people who sign the paychecks or if you think that maybe moving the needle a bit in the other direction wouldn't be catastrophic. Personally, my experience is that people in positions with more power are not obviously so much more competent than the ones below them that having my coworkers band together with me to be able to agree on what a reasonable set of things we should try to collectively strive for is a scary idea.
> The thing is that working together when you're not the stakeholder is quite easy because the stakeholder has to deal with the shit. Things get real when it is only you and your fellow brethren.
I'm incredulous that you think that the people who are currently the stakeholders care more about your circumstances if you're an employee than the ones who literally are in the same ones as you. If you seriously think "management might willingly do things that are worse for their current set of employees in order to make a bit more money" isn't something that employees should ever be concerned about, I have to wonder how much time you've actually spent as an employee outside of management.
(It's also pretty telling that you talk about "dealing with the shit" being something only in management; I guess the saying "shit rolls downhill" is easy to dismiss for people who have traditionally not been far from the peak)
> (If you are game but your coworkers are the ones who are reluctant, remember it is you who is the "yahoo")
If I accepted the premise that the waters hadn't be sufficiently poisoned by constant bombardment of messages like yours over the past century, then maybe this would be a less ridiculous axiom.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for sharing. I'm also familiar with Mondragon in Spain as a cooperative - similarly an agricultural one primarily. When I said "here" in the sentences " ...there must be 100 people like this here on this forum in the US. Can they point me to one such one here... " I was referring to the US.
Here is relative, I'm here on the forum and here in W.Australia. There's nothing preventing co-ops from operating in the US other than culture.
That's true. "Here" doesn't mean anything on its own. I gathered as much from your response. I was clarifying what I was curious about because clearly I'd attached my "in the US" in my original comment to the wrong phrase.
> There's nothing preventing co-ops from operating in the US other than culture.
Right, and this is why I was curious. It seemed to me that while there is nothing preventing this from happening, and while there are many commenters here who are expressing that they'd like one, I haven't really heard of one. In the US, of course.