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Fastmail Employees Form a Union

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Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#191

Post by dontlaugh »

pc86 wrote: post #68
EdwardDiego wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where the Union negotiated pay/benefits they got was less (before and after union dues) than the surrounding non-union competition. Yeah, that's a common anti-union tactic. Another one is passing on any better terms negotiated with a union to non-union workers to make it look like union membership gains you nothing. Of course, when the union is gone, the largesse tends to end.

How is "I give my negotiating rights away to a union and they did a worse job negotiating than I did" a "common anti-union tactic?" It sounds like just something that happens from time to time.

Unions negotiate collective minimums. Individuals frequently manage to negotiate more for themselves, if they have the leverage.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#192

Post by carlosjobim »

pvg wrote: post #158
carlosjobim wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Downvote to disagree is a perfectly fine thing to do on HN and not a sign of anyone's depravity.

Down voting for disagreement is base behaviour. Of course nothing is stopping somebody from being base on HN, neither in real life. We've all met our fair share of rude and ignorant people. They're not going anywhere.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#193

Post by fodkodrasz »

8372049 wrote: post #176
fodkodrasz wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for me both are far better than o365, which even marked legit business mail (o365 invoices :)) from microsoft itsef as spam! I'm generally content with fastmail, but the webmail would need some polish. (and by polish I do not mean the user hostile react rewrites MS and Google are pushing)

What are you unhappy about with the webmail?

From the top of my head:

- Hungarian translation is not the best (they provide it, thus I use it). It has missing parts, and sometimes problematic mistranslations. Localization (date format and date conventions) is sometimes incorrect in the calendar.

- Some calendar workflows are clunky and unintuitive.

- some other similar UX papercuts (don't get me wrong, others have theirs too, but it would be nice if fastmail would be better).

- The most annoying: if I'm logged in I need to open a private browser session to see their main site, as it instantly redirects me to the app, and I cannot access resource from within.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#195

Post by [deleted] »

secretforest wrote: post #150
nerpderp82 wrote: post #94

Also a Fastmail customer and prounion. I'll be watching this closely. I have been ecstatic about the quality of service. Fingers crossed management does the right thing and retains their customers and employees.

Bron seems like a good CEO. He's come up through the ranks at FM, so hopefully he's fully onboard with the workers. I had an account when they first got off the ground, survived the Opera days, and built their little email empire. I followed Bron and RobN on Twitter and on blogs. If I lived in a place where there was an IT union like the Communications Workers of America union that covered IT people, I'd join. They a…

[deleted]

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#196

Post by vidarh »

dontlaugh wrote: post #161
dagw wrote: post #97

Slightly off topic, but could someone explain why employees in the US keep having to form their own union at each company, rather than the employees just joining an existing union? If I wanted to join a union where live, I'd just pick a relevant union, go to their home page, and click 'join'.

In the US unions only exist as a legal entity after a collective bargaining contract has been reached. In most other countries, before that point workers can still be union members “at large” get support from members in other workplaces and from the central union in their quest to gain recognition in their workplace.

Many US unions only represent you if you're in a unionised shop, but unions can represent you without a collective bargaining contract. The only issue is that legal rights are more limited.

The IWW is an example of a union that accepts members from non-union shops both in the US and many other countries.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#197

Post by jamiequint »

acdha wrote: post #173
jamiequint wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions almost never negotiate in the long-term interest of a business, they're collectively overly-short-term-focused cash/productivity drags on a business. If unions were truly long-term focused they'd be negotiating things like employee equity, but you almost never see that. Ceteris paribus non union shops are more long-term focused and trend towards better long-term outcomes.

That’s a lot of hand waving around an assertion conspicuously missing any supporting logic or data. Do you have any citations? Say, for example, a study comparing the actions of unions versus senior management over time? It’s not hard to find examples of unions accepting cuts to help the future of a business during a bad economic downturn, or executives focused on juicing the share price before they sell, so I think…

Sure, here's a 40 year survey paper published in a top three economics journal which supports this with data: https://www.princeton.edu/~davidlee/wp/Longrununion.pdf

Also I'm not sure what "supporting logic" is, I presented my logic and you can disagree with it if you want (usually using different logic, which you haven't presented), but there's no such thing as "supporting logic".

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#198

Post by hightrix »

pseudalopex wrote: post #144
tobyjsullivan wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to imagine a scenario where employees would unionize despite already feeling like they are treated fairly. The union/employer relationship is inherently hostile. The whole idea is that unionized employees can threaten production/profits as negotiation leverage. Choosing that path means the employees have already given up on cooperation based on goodwill. It must take a very sour relationship to reach that…

You struggle to imagine anyone understanding current fair treatment does not guarantee future fair treatment?

It is hard for me to imagine a situation where I feel like I am being treated well at a company and then decide that I want to add another level of bureaucracy and additional fees by joining a union.

Edit: to add, I am not at all opposed to unions. They provide a valuable service in many industries.

Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union

#199

Post by bluGill »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #138
niels8472 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The least corrupt countries per the corruption perceptions index also (mostly) have strong unions. Danmark and Finland topping the list have 70% membership.

US-Finland expat here, and yes, I quite like my union. But I especially like my unemployment fund: 100 euros a year gets me 50% of my pre-tax salary for a year if I lose or leave my job. Unemployment insurance plans seem underrated in general by FTEs, both in the US and elsewhere. Without it, your ability to exercise both halves of "voice or exit" in the corporate world are severely curtailed. Like life insurance, it…

$100 euros a year does not get you 50% of your pre-tax salary for a year. That 100 might be what you paid, but that is not anywhere close to what that costs. Do not confuse the cost of something with the price you pay. At 100 per year they should just make it free. I'm not sure what the real cost of unemployment is per year (there are people who's job it is to figure this out - they have more data than me), but it is thousands per year.
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