Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA • Hacker News Board

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#151

Post by hinkley » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 11:44 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #147

hinkley wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joel talking about the great care they took to build their offices (in a way that I felt was a huge mistake) was sort of the beginning of me realizing that he doesn't get everything right. There's also an uncanny valley effect, where ignoring a problem entirely means that your employees may have needs they aren't aware of, and as soon as you shine a light on it, their job satisfaction is actually lower until you get…

What's wrong with how they built their offices, in your opinion?

There's a lot of crappy office politics that circles around access to daylight. You invariably have a mismatch between Valuable Employees and Valuable deskspace, jockying for position becomes a distraction and having multiple grades of desk just kind of beats the newer employees about the head and shoulders with how little they matter.

It is, in a word, fractious.

The best solution I've seen for this is to keep most of the windows in public spaces. If I go for water or to the bathroom, I should get daylight. Impromptu meeting spaces and lunch spots: daylight.

The thing is, developers say they want daylight at their desk, and then they realize that they can't actually work in natural light (this has gotten better in just the last few years, but I've been watching this happen for 20), and so the people who 'own' the windows end up closing the blinds to work in peace.

The worse this ever got, we had the top floor of a building and so many blinds were closed all day that we might as well have rented space in the basement for half the price/ft²

So now if I am to get any daylight it is at the sole discretion of someone already on an ego trip? No thank you.

Move the desks so that people can see daylight but aren't in daylight. All the windows stay open, your AC bills are a little lower, and the steepness of the pecking order is not quite so brazen.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#152

Post by fiter » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 11:47 PM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #135

manfredo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sued for what? If I form a union with my co-workers and demand $1,000,000 salaries it's illegal for the company to say "nope" and hire someone else? Management is under no obligation to accept union terms, and is free to hire non-union work if the union terms are not competitive.

IANAL (not for US law anyway), but firing someone because of their trying to unionize and hiring someone else is illegal in many world states.

In the US, it looks like you can "permanently replace" union workers who are on strike.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#153

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 11:52 PM UTC

fiter wrote: post #149

dragonwriter wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you implying that public prosecutors have the option to not interact with criminal defense attorneys, No, I'm implying that working for an actor’s counterparty compromises your ability to represent that actor in adversarial interactions with the same counterparty, which is a core function of unions with respect to employers as it is with defense attorneys with respect to prosecutors. > companies certainly have…

You're even more compromised if you are removed. In the US, do you think companies have not moved manufacturing from union plants to non-union plants? Do you think they have not moved manufacturing out of US plants? Do you think this does not have to do with union membership? I believe the adversarial view of unions and employers results in inefficiency and waste. I was suggesting an alternative view of unions and em…

> You're even more compromised if you are removed.

Unions (or their leadership) perceived as serving management are removed, invariably and swiftly, by their constituents, whether through decertification or leadership elections.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#154

Post by fiter » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 11:58 PM UTC

larrywright wrote: post #131

Apocryphon wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these real-life anecdotes of the downside of unions are helpful data points, because they should be addressed if new unions are to form, whether in tech or elsewhere. The important thing to remember though is that bad experiences in of themselves are no reason to write off a category of organization, or to assume no improvement is possible. Where would our industry be if we just assumed riding taxis would alw…

This was a second hand story, but I knew someone years ago who was in a union (factory job). She loved the union, but what I noticed was that there was a hard line between “workers” and “management”, and the relationship was quite adversarial - more than I’ve seen anywhere I worked. During some negotiation thing, she was going to work with a pin on her uniform with her bosses name on it and a line through it.

Unions reinforce the concept of class conflict/struggle/warfare due to strict categorization. The laws seem to be set up in a way to encourage this "us versus them" mentality.

[0] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-...

"Managers and supervisors are also not protected by the NLRA, and cannot join unions or be part of the bargaining unit. These employees are considered to be part of a company’s management rather than its labor force."

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#155

Post by nwmcsween » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 12:31 AM UTC

ridv wrote: post #148

I hope the CWA treats them better than they treat the SUNY grad students they represent. All State University of New York graduate students are also represented by CWA. [1] Out of the lowly salary I earned as a grad student, I had to pay dues to them throughout the entire five years I spent in grad school. I never felt like they particularly cared about us or got to see a return on this investment. They made a show o…

This is the thing with unions they don't care about one persons issues at a workplace but general issues like pay when compared to other companies in the same field. If the company previously had toxic people in high places the people will just adjust to follow union rules while still being toxic.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#156

Post by manfredo » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #135

manfredo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sued for what? If I form a union with my co-workers and demand $1,000,000 salaries it's illegal for the company to say "nope" and hire someone else? Management is under no obligation to accept union terms, and is free to hire non-union work if the union terms are not competitive.

IANAL (not for US law anyway), but firing someone because of their trying to unionize and hiring someone else is illegal in many world states.

Correct, firing someone for trying to unionize is illegal. It is illegal to retaliate against workers for trying to unionize. It's not prohibited, to the best of my knowledge, to receive a contract from a union and say, "these term's aren't competitive, we'll find other workers". Otherwise that would effectively give unions unlimited power over companies.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#157

Post by manfredo » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:11 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #138

manfredo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sued for what? If I form a union with my co-workers and demand $1,000,000 salaries it's illegal for the company to say "nope" and hire someone else? Management is under no obligation to accept union terms, and is free to hire non-union work if the union terms are not competitive.

Right, that's illegal. Management is under no obligation to accept any particular set of terms, but they're also not allowed to just say "nope"; they're required to continue negotiating with the union until an agreement is reached.

So if me and my 2 other buddies are the only two employees at an early startup we can unionize and demand immense equity packages, and the company is prohibited from hiring additional employees if they don't like our demands?

This does not sound right - this effectively gives unions the ability to extort companies with impunity. I'll believe this claim that companies are prohibited by law from hiring a non-union workforce if you back it up with a source.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#158

Post by johnpowell » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:22 AM UTC

fiter wrote: post #76

johnpowell wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a union HVAC guy for a few years. And one very nice thing was that there were union shops and they went through the union to find employees. So if work dried up at one place the union would take care of getting my unemployment going and then when work came up they would call and say that I was needed elsewhere. This probably wouldn't translate well to software. But it works great if you are installing ducts. Sa…

Is this one of the angles that unions use to sell themselves to companies? They can help by providing a well of valuable resources to draw on in an as-needed basis. When both hiring and firing would be an easier proposition, I could see more activity occurring as a result. These people would have experience at different companies and could provide their knowledge like many say is the benefit of people rotating jobs a…

There is a reason it is called the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers)..

If you try to UBER union electricians you are probably going to be in for a rude awakening.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#159

Post by chrisco255 » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 2:32 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #104

chrisco255 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My concern as a libertarian is that unionizing tech will lead to calcification, decline of agility and innovation, and diversity of business structure. There's no question that the U.S. has been more innovative in tech than other countries over the past few decades. That's thanks to an entrepreneurial culture that encourages risk taking. Unions attempt to limit risk to employees. In doing so, they limit the agility o…

We're back to upside and downside risk. If you want "flexibility", you have to offer more. The US west coast startup culture has done OK at giving staff a share of the potential upside. The games industry, on the other hand, is notorious for even successful games resulting in studio closures, and employees exposing themselves to the risks of crunch time being rewarded with layoffs. I know the ideal libertarian corpor…

Your last statement is unfair. The gaming industry might be different, but the general software industry has among the best benefits, working hours, perks, offices, work-from-home flexibility, stock compensation, etc of any industry. And we achieved that without a union.

Re: Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA

#160

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 3:15 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #157

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, that's illegal. Management is under no obligation to accept any particular set of terms, but they're also not allowed to just say "nope"; they're required to continue negotiating with the union until an agreement is reached.

So if me and my 2 other buddies are the only two employees at an early startup we can unionize and demand immense equity packages, and the company is prohibited from hiring additional employees if they don't like our demands? This does not sound right - this effectively gives unions the ability to extort companies with impunity. I'll believe this claim that companies are prohibited by law from hiring a non-union work…

Again, they don't have to accept your demands, but they do have to negotiate rather than just telling you to buzz off. It's illegal for a business to "refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of its employees". Many people do argue that this gives unions the ability to extort companies with impunity - it's one of the main reasons companies often fight so hard against having a union form.

(If you literally only have 2 employees, the employer might not meet the threshold to be covered under the NLRB.)

cite: https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employers/b...