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The Sex Tape Litmus Test

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Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#101

Post by Evbn »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #65
wmil wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions in the US always have specific views that employees often don't share. Everything is about retirement, preservation of existing employees, and supporting other unions. The problem is that most tech workers want incompetent workers fired, since they make other workers lives more difficult. The field also moves fast enough that credentialization is not particularly helpful. In fact, it can be harmful. Unions wou…

Meeeehhhhh... I'd join a tech union that allowed me to participate in bargaining over working conditions and benefits. I've seen a surprising number of companies ( coughAmazoncough ) that pay very high base salaries and nice bonuses but completely crap out on health insurance, pension/retirement account, vacation time, work hours, etc.

What is wrong with employment benefits at Amazon, and besides the 'work hard'. ethic?

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#102

Post by shadowmint »

I'd love to know of any instances of this (work done in personal time being legally given to the company person worked for at the time) going to court.

Sounds like a non-compete clause to me; ie. basically unenforceable.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#103

Post by smsm42 »

Xylakant wrote: post #58
redcircle wrote: post #28

California has a nice law that says that the employee owns IP created on his own time, unrelated to work, etc. This is a reason I moved to CA: the state I was in lacked such a law, and all the tech companies had contracts that failed the sex tape test. I suspect that for a place to flourish like Silicon Valley, it needs a law that protects self bootstrapping startups.

I guess the "unrelated to work" might be a point of debate once you create IP of high value. In fact, in Germany we have the "Arbeitnehmererfindungsgesetz (ARBNERFG)" [1] which stipulates that your employer has first right to all patents and inventions related to your work, even if you create them in your spare time. The basic reasoning is that your employer supplies you with all tools and ressources required for the…

I love it how German seems to be able to put the whole law in one word :) It doesn't sound that stupid, depending on what "related" means - if it is indeed almost the same as you are being paid for, then it may make some sense (I'm not sure I agree with it, as it's basically means employer owns your thoughts, which seems a weird concept to me, but even if it is wrong it's not completely stupid). If it's just "it's all computer stuff so must be the same" then it's stupid. I'd say it all depends on how the courts will be treating it.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#104

Post by jrockway »

Evbn wrote: post #101
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meeeehhhhh... I'd join a tech union that allowed me to participate in bargaining over working conditions and benefits. I've seen a surprising number of companies ( coughAmazoncough ) that pay very high base salaries and nice bonuses but completely crap out on health insurance, pension/retirement account, vacation time, work hours, etc.

What is wrong with employment benefits at Amazon, and besides the 'work hard'. ethic?

Only two weeks of vacation, no free food, etc.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#105

Post by jerf »

mistercow wrote: post #77
wmil wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions in the US always have specific views that employees often don't share. Everything is about retirement, preservation of existing employees, and supporting other unions. The problem is that most tech workers want incompetent workers fired, since they make other workers lives more difficult. The field also moves fast enough that credentialization is not particularly helpful. In fact, it can be harmful. Unions wou…

Sure, but my point is that a die hard free market advocate should either disagree with what you just said, or swallow that hard pill and say that the problems with unions are just a necessary evil. Instead, many seem to be vehemently anti-union while still holding to a "the free market will solve everything" point of view. I'm not saying that unions are perfect. I'm saying that it's inconsistent to admit that they ca…

You should be careful imputing views to others, then criticizing them, it's easy to miss nuances, then jump on the nuances you missed. For instance, here's a consistent view: "Unions can be forces for good but the government has gone too far in empowering them, creating a monster." I live in Michigan, a state that, no matter how much unions would love to deny it, has been badly damaged by them.

I'm a libertarian, and I support the existence of unions... but I also support the existence of Right to Work laws. A union should have to work to justify itself to its members, not be empowered by law to collect funds from individuals who do not wish to be in the union. Unions should be shielded from punitive violence by their employers... which I wouldn't even see fit to mention except that history says it needs to be mentioned... but if the employer can "just" hire replacements then the simple truth is that the union is negotiating itself right out of its market, and it needs to be forced to face up to that, not hide behind the government.

Unions are part of the free market, and should remain part of the free market. They should come and go as companies do, and the very fact that so many are The Union for their industry and that the same unions are nearly-permanent fixtures of the landscape is significant evidence that they are themselves artificially-created government monopolies, and I view them with the same suspicion I would any other government-created monopoly.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#106

Post by yummyfajitas »

dalke wrote: post #98
yummyfajitas wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question to the audience is, shouldn't a free market advocate want to reduce both the laws which give unions specific power AND those which take power away from unions? Yes. I'd love to scrap all laws relating to unions and have the law treat them as worker-owned consulting companies. Is an employer a sort of monopolist? I believe they are. While there are exceptions (IT in the Bay Area during the dot-com era bei…

"worker-owned consulting companies" There are many organizational forms. I wouldn't choose a company. It should be a cooperative, as described at http://www.sba.gov/content/cooperative . "Not all cooperatives are incorporated, though many choose to do so." And "Democracy is a defining element of cooperatives. The democratic structure of a cooperative ensures that it serves its members' needs." "Can you explain this c…

First of all, your selective quote deeply misrepresents Keynesian economics. I suggest you go educate yourself in more detail on the theory.

Or do you think the 2009-2010 spike to 14% unemployment rate for Michigan was all due to people deciding to stay unemployed while holding out for higher paying work?

Nominal wages have increased during the recession. If employees were willing to take a pay cut to become employed, that shouldn't have happened.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECIWAG

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECICOM

I'm not actually a Keynesian myself - I tend to subscribe to recalculation theories for this particular recession, though I definitely believe sticky nominal wages definitely play a role. But I appeal to Keynesian theories in this discussion since many union supporters tend to profess support for Keynesian economics (while oddly supporting institutions which create wage stickiness).

An employer in that situation can abuse their monopoly power, and take advantage that the switching costs for the employee to get another job are so high.

Your theory yields no reason an employee can't do the same thing. Replacing a worker also involves transaction costs, and rather high ones (look at the price of a recruiter).

Once a person is hired, there are switching costs on both sides. You have yet to demonstrate any structural difference between them.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#107

Post by kabdib »

My current employment contract says that even IP /related/ to my employer's business, as long as it is done on my own equipment and my own time, is mine.

It's an enlightened place.

I expect to have to prove it, to some extent, if it ever came up. Which is one of the reasons I have a private github account; commit logs on machines not controlled by me might be useful.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#108

Post by 001sky »

anthonyb wrote: post #90
jamesaguilar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a lot of engineers, both here and elsewhere, have a very simplistic view of what other departments do. I've seen similar simplistic statements about design and management. I guess that's just part of human nature, to develop the view that only your work is complex or nuanced.

In this particular case though, there's not a lot of complexity or nuance, is there? It's a blanket "We own all your IP" clause in a contract.

Lawyers see a "mistake" and go for a landgrab. FB/Instagram TOS update was probably a similar dynamic. Legal likes to err on the side of over-reach, all other things equal.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#109

Post by alphast0rm »

andybak wrote: post #91
gte910h wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In GA the constitution USED to be written such that unenforceable contracts, especially unenforceable employment contracts, were void in their entirety. They sadly passed an amendment to remove that :O(

Is GA something to do with a US state? Please spell these things out in full. It's only a few extra characters and it helps the rest of us pretend this site is global.

You are correct sir, GA is the 2-letter abbreviation for the state of Georgia.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#110

Post by othermaciej »

dalke wrote: post #98
yummyfajitas wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question to the audience is, shouldn't a free market advocate want to reduce both the laws which give unions specific power AND those which take power away from unions? Yes. I'd love to scrap all laws relating to unions and have the law treat them as worker-owned consulting companies. Is an employer a sort of monopolist? I believe they are. While there are exceptions (IT in the Bay Area during the dot-com era bei…

"worker-owned consulting companies" There are many organizational forms. I wouldn't choose a company. It should be a cooperative, as described at http://www.sba.gov/content/cooperative . "Not all cooperatives are incorporated, though many choose to do so." And "Democracy is a defining element of cooperatives. The democratic structure of a cooperative ensures that it serves its members' needs." "Can you explain this c…

> In short "you take a 5% cut in pay or I fire you and hire > the next person who walks in that door." It doesn't even > need to be said: "you will take a 5% cut in pay" implies "or > you'll have to quit and find another job."

In practice this almost never happens. Employers are very reluctant to cut nominal wages, even if they could afford to hire more workers that way and get a more economically efficient outcome. This phenomenon is called "sticky wages" and is believed to be a significant cause of unemployment in recessions.

In summary, the relationship between unemployment and labor pricing power is believed, by many economists (most notably Keynsians but also e.g. market monetarists) to be about the opposite of what you said - stickiness of wages causes greater unemployment, rather than unemployment causing downward pressure on wages.

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