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Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts

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Re: Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts

#191

Post by erik_seaberg »

pessimizer wrote: post #131
0des wrote: post #8

Is it mandatory for employees to join the union?

No, and even worse, it is mandatory for the union to negotiate for employees who don't join. That's one of the many ways in which unions are sabotaged in the US. If unions could negotiate for exclusive benefits for their own members, they wouldn't have any trouble recruiting. Instead Taft-Hartley made it illegal for them to manage insurance/pensions that the employer contributes to. Unions are weak because the deck w…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members-only_unionism is allowed, but most unions impose the same rules about non-members to prevent competition.

Re: Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts

#192

Post by adam_arthur »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #182
adam_arthur wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends how it's structured. If Kickstarter can go and hire non union labor, then all is good. If the whole union will quit unanimously if they do that, then they have effective monopoly power over labor for the company. The company will die if they try to bypass the union. In this case they could distort compensation far above what a competitive market would bear, and consumers of Kickstarter eat the cost (e.g. b…

> If the whole union will quit unanimously if they do that, then they have effective monopoly power over labor for the company. This is no different from having to accept any other company policies. A company has a monopoly on its own policies, including whether joining a union is required.

It's very different.

Employees can join a different company. Companies can't magically become a different company. If they have a single union they are forced to work with, that union has monopoly power on labor supply.

Good for union employees, bad for the rest of society

Re: Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts

#193

Post by zozbot234 »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #189
ceejayoz wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> raising money to support violence against conservatives Let's be clear; the title was "Always Punch Nazis", not "Always Punch Conservatives". If you're mixing the two up, that's more on you than the author.

>"Let's be clear; the title was "Always Punch Nazis", not "Always Punch Conservatives". If you're mixing the two up, that's more on you than the author." I've definitely noticed an overlap between the kinds of folks who want society to embrace and normalize violence against "Nazis" and the kinds of folks who go around accusing opponents of Nazism with little to no restraint. Edit: I'm struggling to articulate this, b…

> I've definitely noticed an overlap between the kinds of folks who want society to embrace and normalize violence against "Nazis" and the kinds of folks who go around accusing opponents of Nazism with little to no restraint.

Indeed, there was a very high profile example of just that a few months ago. It even made headline news, you've probably heard about it.

Re: Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts

#194

Post by lostcolony »

sushid wrote: post #33
VictorPath wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> high performers in tech are allergic to unions? High performers in tech do not have a problem with the heirs who own a majority of their corporation's stock telling them what to do, but are allergic to the people alongside them doing the work and creating the wealth from having input.

Heirs? Kickstarter isn't a dynasty by any stretch of imagination. High performers in tech are in fact allergic to unions. I guarantee you that the highest paid FANG engineers would never in a million years even consider applying to a unionized tech company. Do you know how hard it is to already weed out underperformers in large tech companies? I wouldn't be surprised if half of Kickstarter's engineers pumped out fewe…

>> I wouldn't be surprised if half of Kickstarter's engineers pumped out fewer than 3 PRs a week.

Ah yes. That always super meaningful metric of high performance - number of PRs. Doesn't matter what it is, if you can't solve it and push some code in less than two days, it's a clear indicator you're a terrible engineer.

Re: Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts

#195

Post by claytonjy »

Xeoncross wrote: post #163
claytonjy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because conditions are good, doesn't mean they couldn't be better, or that they will always remain good. Demands like unionization are made most effectively when the demanding party has high leverage. Unionization is a preventative measure against a future potential backslide in conditions. Not every worker can or wants to work for a FAANG, whether because of skill, time available to study, logistics like locati…

Removing my skills or value proposition from the equation sounds very dangerous. This sounds like giving power to bean counters and exalting mediocrity. When I want 'better', I work for it and get it myself, not by schmoozing the union bosses to get on their good side or paying union fees for 20 years to build up tenure.

Unionization doesn't mean removing your value proposition from the equation. There are still different title tiers with different pay, and variance in pay within a given band. I would hope a tech worker union is less tenure-oriented than a union like the UAW but I acknowledge that is tricky to implement and not guaranteed.

If you are vastly more productive than coworkers in the same title band and wish to capture more of that surplus value, you should look to change employers, found a company, or become an independent consultant. Those are the available options with or without unions.

Re: Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts

#196

Post by kgermino »

zozbot234 wrote: post #193
BitwiseFool wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Let's be clear; the title was "Always Punch Nazis", not "Always Punch Conservatives". If you're mixing the two up, that's more on you than the author." I've definitely noticed an overlap between the kinds of folks who want society to embrace and normalize violence against "Nazis" and the kinds of folks who go around accusing opponents of Nazism with little to no restraint. Edit: I'm struggling to articulate this, b…

> I've definitely noticed an overlap between the kinds of folks who want society to embrace and normalize violence against "Nazis" and the kinds of folks who go around accusing opponents of Nazism with little to no restraint. Indeed, there was a very high profile example of just that a few months ago. It even made headline news, you've probably heard about it.

Can you elaborate instead of being coy? I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Re: Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts

#197

Post by andrepd »

throwaway_95283 wrote: post #116
lostcolony wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What...sort of environment do you think caused them to unionize?

One where people were expected spend more time working than being offended.

Ah yes, labour unions, that invention of 2010s woke culture... You seem to be a bit confused.

Re: Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts

#199

Post by JumpCrisscross »

native_samples wrote: post #149
gnicholas wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you link to details about this?

It's worth remembering that the event that, uh, kickstarted their drive for unionization was the site's management banning a project that was raising money to support violence against conservatives (the actual physical kind, not words). The details are a bit fuzzy now but iirc some of the hard-left employees didn't like the ToS being enforced in that case, because whilst they accepted the project was calling for viol…

> banning a project that was raising money to support violence against conservatives (the actual physical kind, not words)

"A graphic artist...raising money on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter to bring a comic book, called 'Always Punch Nazis,' to life" doesn't obviously sound like a call for violence [1]. I see enough ambiguity here to hold judgement.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/10/how-debat...

Re: Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts

#200

Post by function_seven »

foobarian wrote: post #188
busterarm wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not elitist. Some skills are effectively commoditized. They don't require specialized, rare knowledge, years of training and constant personal investment. If you pick a job that literally anyone else can learn to do in a few days, then the cap on your salary and lack of bargaining power is on you.

I mean, it is elitist. Is that inaccurate? What I don't get is why that is supposed to be bad. It's just a fact.

"Elitist" is almost always used as a pejorative. Just looking up the definition of it points to social power, wealth, class hierarchies, etc. It is rarely used to just mean "smart, capable, skilled" in a neutral sense.

The comment above was clearly using it as a pejorative.

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