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United Wizards of the Coast

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Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#121

Post by monknomo »

zulux wrote: post #103

I hate unions, but I've noticed they only form when there's some sort of abuse. Treat employees well, and this isn't a problem. Also, flip the hierarchy: a business that puts employees first and profits for owners last can often have a shit ton of profits for owners. Executing isn't easy and requires wisdom and work - but that's why owners are paid the big bucks. If owners can't hack it... Then it's a skill issue. Ge…

To me, this comment is a bucket of contradictions.

Why do you hate them, when you recognize that they are general the result of abuse? I'll cop to unions not always being great; the rules can be counterproductive, or sometimes limiting, but they are up to the union members, so at the end of the day there is some kind of reason for them.

And the second paragraph - barring ESOP or employee-owned co-ops a union is pretty much the only game in town other than crossing your fingers and hoping the company owners, or board, or stock market are capable of pulling their head out of their ass. this can be a big lift.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#122

Post by mjr00 »

margalabargala wrote: post #104
mjr00 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you write logistics software, the company will say "we own all logistics software you write". You can't create a competitor. But if you work for a logistics software company and decide to go write a video editor on your own time, the company wouldn't own that. The problem is there's no clear legal definition of what "logistics software" is. A video editor is a seemingly obvious example of what is not, but what i…

Yes, you're right. The common (lazy) approach for companies that don't give a shit is "we own everything because it might be complicated to introduce ambiguity and we own you anyway". Having carveouts for obviously not-related software is easy. At a decent company populated by reasonable people, if you wanted to work on something you felt fell into the grey area, you would ask and get a written okay. Which is how it…

> The difference is that the shitty companies there's never a route to do anything, however unrelated, without running it by HR. Because they think they own you.

"Shitty" companies have legal obligations to include these kind of clauses though, because investors and board members don't want to deal with a situation where there's exactly this ambiguity about what counts as "obviously not-related software". HR exists to protect the company. What counts as obviously non-related to you may not count as obviously non-related to a board member who hears about the new optimization algorithm you wrote and realizes the company can monetize it.

> On the contrary, using a nonzero amount of working hours to work on something pretty clearly makes it company property.

How recently have you seen a tech employment contract where you were obligated to work exactly 8 to 5 with a 1 hour lunch break? Flexible hours means any hour is potentially a "working hour".

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#123

Post by satvikpendem »

mjr00 wrote: post #119
satvikpendem wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech workers are fungible while actors or athletes are not though, so they should better be compared to more blue collar worker unions and here it is the case that wages are generally normalized.

> Tech workers are fungible while actors or athletes are not though Strongly disagree with this, and I'm in 'tech management' now so I'm not saying this out of self-preservation. Tech workers are similar to athletes in skill disparity IMO. A handful of superstars makes a massive difference. Look at those superstar AI developers who are allegedly getting 8 or 9 figure compensation from Meta etc. They're still technica…

Those 8 and 9 figure employees are the exception that proves the rule, as I am talking about the vast majority of tech employees who largely fall within the middle of the normal curve. Athletes as well are far fewer in number and simply cost less overall (less than 2000 in the entire NFL).

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#124

Post by satvikpendem »

fragmede wrote: post #115
mjr00 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> High earners generally do not benefit from unions as they can make more negotiating their own labor value versus participating in collective negotiation which is more likely to drag their compensation down towards the average, even if it's still higher than average. High earners benefit from unions if union rules are made which benefit high earners. The most well-known example of a high-earner union is SAG-AFTRA an…

The Bar association for lawyers, and the MD licensing system are another two examples of a trade having a union.

Those act more like cartels to keep their own wages high while in reality there is a doctor shortage for example.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#125

Post by lovich »

baconsunday wrote: post #107
glasss wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think on average it's a safer assumption that the union made up of your peers are more aligned with your interests than the owners of the company are. All of my friends that are teachers do admit their union has flaws, but also are very grateful to have strong contracts, benefits, and people willing to fight for them when the school system tries to screw them over.

Is that actually the case for the tech unions that actually exist, though? Historically, the people pushing for tech unionization were doing it for ideological reasons, not in response to the relatively recent layoffs, etc. and you can see this in their leadership. I have a pretty simple litmus test for them: are they opposed to H1B hiring, and would they have defended James Damore when he got ousted from Google for…

It sounds like you’re just as ideologically in your opposition if you’re bringing up James Damore.

On opposing H1B as they are implemented now I agree with you, but in a hypothetical world with tech unions James Damore would still be advocating for large swathes of fellow union members to be removed. He was being misogynistic not “basically being autistic”.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#126

Post by satvikpendem »

glance9835 wrote: post #59
satvikpendem wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why in America it doesn't happen in the tech sector for devs specifically (as there is Alphabet Workers Union), beyond the typical reasons of American anti union sentiment like corporatism, bootstrap mentality etc, despite which there are many unions in the US like UAW, police and teachers unions etc. For tech, it's largely a different set of reasons, like high wages, no real grievances per se, and the ease…

Yea it is odd. Bc then tech workers get fired on mass just to get a little boost in stock price. And yet many don't think we need a union...

I don't think a union would prevent them getting fired though, much less getting outsourced to areas without unions.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#127

Post by lovich »

ryandrake wrote: post #82
looneysquash wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company you work for almost always has more power in negotiations than you do. (For some hypothetical "you".) The bigger the company is, the more power they have typically. If you want to make more money or get better benefits or otherwise negotiate a better contract, you need more leverage. Unionizing is one way to gain more negotiation power by negotiating together with your co-workers instead of individually.…

A lot of HN repliers think that they , out of thousands of other employees, are that One Captain Of Industry that has sufficient bargaining and negotiating power to stand toe to toe with a huge employer. And therefore, a union could never help tech employees as a class.

I have gotten a lot of mileage asking from these types once we get to the “I can negotiate my own raises” by asking them how many times they’ve actually tried negotiating much less succeeded.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#128

Post by michaelt »

ryandrake wrote: post #82
looneysquash wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company you work for almost always has more power in negotiations than you do. (For some hypothetical "you".) The bigger the company is, the more power they have typically. If you want to make more money or get better benefits or otherwise negotiate a better contract, you need more leverage. Unionizing is one way to gain more negotiation power by negotiating together with your co-workers instead of individually.…

A lot of HN repliers think that they , out of thousands of other employees, are that One Captain Of Industry that has sufficient bargaining and negotiating power to stand toe to toe with a huge employer. And therefore, a union could never help tech employees as a class.

A lot of the salary figures I see thrown around for tech employees in the US are pretty wild [1] - $200k, $400k total compensation without even getting 'Senior' in the job title.

That's in a country with a median household income of $84k [2]

I think it's understandable why someone would feel they were doing well at bargaining and negotiating if they were taking home 4.7x as much as their neighbours and loved ones.

Folks in the games industry by all accounts have really shitty pay and working conditions so I can 110% understand why they'd unionise.

[1] https://www.levels.fyi/?tab=levels&compare=Google%2CMeta%2CA... [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#129

Post by lovich »

nonethewiser wrote: post #76
perrohunter wrote: post #44

I think there are some professions where Unions make sense, like for Pilots and Teachers, as a 30 years of experience teacher can be replaced with a 2 years of experience teacher, so we need unions to protect the experienced Teacher or Pilot, but when it comes to what MTG Arena does, I dont see much value on the union existing, perhaps someone can provide some valuable insight

The ability to unionize has very little to do with the ideology of the workforce and everything to do with the structure of the industry. It wont work out in video games because it's not a critical industry and there are plenty of people willing to do the work.

The criticality of the industry, for whatever subjective measure you’re using there, doesn’t matter for union forming.

It’s the leverage that the nascent union has over the company owners and management, who presumably still want to make money.

That being said the video game industry does have a deluge of naive young people willing to sell their bodies and souls for their dream, so I don’t have high hopes for this group.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#130

Post by vunderba »

drob518 wrote: post #9
iwhalen wrote: post #4

From the full letter[1]: > Our Free Time is Our Own: Currently, if an employee makes anything creative in their free time, with their own resources, Hasbro may claim ownership. What we do in our free time should not be dictated by the company; neither should what we make in our free time be owned by the company. How common is this in creative fields? From my perspective this seems outlandish. Imagine doing FOSS work…

Most employment agreements for tech companies have a clause that says that the employer owns everything you do while you’re working for them. And if you’re on salary, as opposed to working by the hour, there really is no “free time.” In practice no company is going to go after you for anything that is non-competitive, and doubly so if it’s also open source work. But yea, if you’re inventing competitive products in yo…

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