Kickstarter employees vote to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#131

Post by kick » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

nouveaux wrote: post #101

kleer001 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Assuming all of the risk is useful. I've never seen a multi-millionaire, let alone a billionaire actually take the cost of failure on personally. Risk externalization is the theme of the era.

Elon Musk invested all of his funds. Let's be honest, tons of people believed Tesla and SpaceX was going to fail. https://venturebeat.com/2010/05/27/elon-musk-personal-financ...

According to the filing — part of his pending divorce case from sci-fi novelist Justine Musk — Elon Musk has been living off personal loans from friends since October 2009 and spending $200,000 a month while making far less. Musk confirmed this in an interview with VentureBeat.

Personal—not Tesla—burn-rate of $200,000 a month, and he still owned property.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#132

Post by iandanforth » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

big_chungus wrote: post #88

ughitsaaron wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, New York is not a right-to-work state.

Why thankfully? Don't workers' rights mean they ought to make their own choices about joining a union or not?

Comments like the above fascinate me. The emotional appeal of "choice" seems to have no end. You can employ it to fight unions, health care, public schools anything you want. Similarly if you can successfully attach "right" (as in "a right") to your rhetoric you can draw out pride, anger, indignation, all sorts of powerful emotions.

I recently learned that Frank Luntz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz) is one of the masters of this and came up with "Death Tax", using "choice" to fight universal healthcare, and "climate change" to soften the more frightening "global warming."

We seem to be highly susceptible to emotional language triggers that just bypass our rational minds.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#133

Post by 1_2__4 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

_sbrk wrote: post #68

I worked in a union shop once, as a summer intern. Every day, we were told to be in the break room at 7:59am to begin promptly at the 8am bell. By 4:30 or 4:45pm, everyone was back in there, waiting for the clock to hit 5pm. One day, I needed to connect two PCs together, which was approved by boss as they would be isolated from the network. So, being the diligent type, I went off and found some network cards and a ca…

This is absolutely bog-standard anti-union propaganda. This could have been written in the 1960s.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#134

Post by dogecoinbase » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

_sbrk wrote: post #68

I worked in a union shop once, as a summer intern. Every day, we were told to be in the break room at 7:59am to begin promptly at the 8am bell. By 4:30 or 4:45pm, everyone was back in there, waiting for the clock to hit 5pm. One day, I needed to connect two PCs together, which was approved by boss as they would be isolated from the network. So, being the diligent type, I went off and found some network cards and a ca…

> I worked in a union shop once, as a summer intern.

Please keep HN comments substantive.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#135

Post by ilikehurdles » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

tempsy wrote: post #79

How do unions operate in organizations where voluntary turnover is relatively high? A small % of people in tech stay at one company for more than a couple of years. I guess there's nothing about a union that stops you from voluntarily quitting for something else in that case, other than paying whatever fee you pay for the time you do stay?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that question; but, I believe the fees are usually prorated and split between each pay period. Also a lot of job switches are because that's the best way to get a decent raise, and frankly I haven't seen great benefits outside of the really big tech commpanies. Perhaps collective bargaining would disincentivize some of that turnover.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#136

Post by blattimwind » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #83

kleer001 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Assuming all of the risk is useful. I've never seen a multi-millionaire, let alone a billionaire actually take the cost of failure on personally. Risk externalization is the theme of the era.

I think you may be misunderstanding - "risk" here is a financial thing, not a personal risk of being tossed on the street. If someone is worth $10 billion and will lose $2 billion if their company fails, that's still a lot of risk being covered, even though it won't really change their life to only have $8 billion.

"The consequences of $X failing will have no impact" is quite literally the definition of risk-free.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#137

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #55

Anyone else think the phrasing in the title is a bit weird? Were there other people voting in this election who were not Kickstarter employees? How can a group which makes up 100% of the electorate not "win" an election? The outcome reflects the majority opinion, by definition.

When employees vote against joining a union, that's generally called a victory for the company's management, so the phrasing contrasts against that. It's definitely loaded language, but it's common enough I can't get too worked up about it.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#138

Post by mc32 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

I want to know if their union contract does anything from preventing parent co from shipping jobs to places with less regulation and cheaper labor...

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#139

Post by notkaiho » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

nosefrog wrote: post #94

notkaiho wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You worked in a union shop once. Not necessarily a representative unionised workplace, just the one you were in. Yet 'in your experience' they are not optimal.

Why don’t you contribute to the conversation by talking about your own experience with unions?

Because my experience with unions is along the lines of the other far-downvoted comments in this thread, i.e. positive

;)

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#140

Post by duxup » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #92

_sbrk wrote: post #68

I worked in a union shop once, as a summer intern. Every day, we were told to be in the break room at 7:59am to begin promptly at the 8am bell. By 4:30 or 4:45pm, everyone was back in there, waiting for the clock to hit 5pm. One day, I needed to connect two PCs together, which was approved by boss as they would be isolated from the network. So, being the diligent type, I went off and found some network cards and a ca…

A friend of mine worked as a developer at defense contractor with mostly union employees. One time they moved him to a different cubicle. Due to union work rules he literally had to wait two days for a union electrician to come by and plug his desktop computer into the wall socket. Just ridiculous.

Personally I had to wait a week to move desks until an electrician carried my desktop two desks over. He didn't move my monitor ... that wasn't included in the rules.