Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hundreds of Facebook employees walk out as Zuckerberg plans town hall tomorrow

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 241 posts

Re: Hundreds of Facebook employees walk out as Zuckerberg plans town hall tomorrow

#201

Post by finnthehuman »

ditonal wrote: post #3

Walkouts will achieve nothing, but the tragic part of the story is Silicon Valley engineers are sitting on a massive amount of power to affect real change IF they collectively organize, which they have various irrational hang ups about doing. Zuckerberg does not care if 50% of his engineers skip a video meeting. He would greatly care if he found out 50%+ of his SREs were going on strike. But the word union is stigmat…

>massive amount of power to affect real change IF they collectively organize, which they have various irrational hang ups about doing

You're calling engineers irrational for not subscribing to an implementation detail before identifying the key deliverables.

Unless goals are set and understood upfront before unionizing, then all they'll end up organizing is a pay raise.

Re: Hundreds of Facebook employees walk out as Zuckerberg plans town hall tomorrow

#202

Post by Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 »

Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 wrote: post #77

What is their end goal here? I certainly don’t want Mark Zuckerberg or any of his employees making decisions on what is considered newsworthy, especially on really important stuff like this. Even if you don’t personally like what is being said, the fact that it _is_ being said - and who is saying it - is an important point for people to know. The next time, it may be your own opinions that they’ll censor: Facebook ha…

Just to drive the point home, what would have happened if a facebook moderator had decided to remove the initial video of Floyd's murder because, hey, the official reports said he was doing something wrong and the video had the potential to incite violence? I'm fairly sure we would not be having the discussion we're having today, and we would have lost the opportunity to improve our democracy.

Re: Hundreds of Facebook employees walk out as Zuckerberg plans town hall tomorrow

#203

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #14
baskire wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us have been in unionized industries prior. It also lead to promotion based on years served. Pay scales. And the protection of low performers. Right now engineers have incredible leverage. What do they gain by a union. Don’t like what Facebook is doing. Quit and work elsewhere. There’s plenty of jobs available

> Right now engineers have incredible leverage. If the engineers’ leverage is so great, why have they been unable to enact policies they support?

Is it not possible that you are using your own feelings to assume most people agree with you? What if you are in a bubble?

What if engineers as a majority don’t agree or don’t care about your issues?

How would you know if you just agreed with a very vocal minority?

Re: Hundreds of Facebook employees walk out as Zuckerberg plans town hall tomorrow

#204

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

Conan_Kudo wrote: post #179
Apocryphon wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineer distaste or at least lack of enthusiasm for open offices is near-universal. It might not be the best reason to create a union, but its prevalence is probably rooted in the lack of something like a union to tell management to back off.

Engineer who works in an open office, can confirm. Open offices suck in a large variety of ways, not the least of which my personal health has deteriorated over the years in large part because of it.

As in getting colds? I haven’t heard of health as an open office gripe, but I’ve never worked in one.

Re: Hundreds of Facebook employees walk out as Zuckerberg plans town hall tomorrow

#205

Post by Balgair »

idoby wrote: post #131
tayo42 wrote: post #28

What's with the cynicism in this posts? They're trying to make a point and bring awareness. Who cares how hard it is. At least they're doing something. To give them credit they're making a political statement at work when we're told not to talk politics at work.

Because they're being hypocrites: they're not putting skin in the game, they're not resigning, they're just virtue signaling. So they don't actually care about what FB is doing. This is why they're being dismissed while Tim Bray received mostly applause.

This is not 0% or 100% stuff. 1% is alright here, 99% is alright too. However you feel about this issue, you can participate in any amount you'd like to, and that is ok.

Re: Hundreds of Facebook employees walk out as Zuckerberg plans town hall tomorrow

#206

Post by [deleted] »

vinhboy wrote: post #91
tayo42 wrote: post #28

What's with the cynicism in this posts? They're trying to make a point and bring awareness. Who cares how hard it is. At least they're doing something. To give them credit they're making a political statement at work when we're told not to talk politics at work.

On Reddit there were a lot of "why don't they just quit their job" comments. I am just rolling eyes really hard. To be fair, when I was younger, before I had all these adult responsibilities, that would have probably been my answer as well.

[deleted]

Re: Hundreds of Facebook employees walk out as Zuckerberg plans town hall tomorrow

#207

Post by Balgair »

ramblerman wrote: post #155
tayo42 wrote: post #28

What's with the cynicism in this posts? They're trying to make a point and bring awareness. Who cares how hard it is. At least they're doing something. To give them credit they're making a political statement at work when we're told not to talk politics at work.

Politics are extremely divisive (definitely in the US at this point). Why is bringing them to the workplace a good idea? I mean we always talk about inclusion. What about people who have diverse political opinions.

Talking about any issue should be encouraged, especially in the workplace. Heck, how many hours do we spend there? [0] Our lives do not stop at some door or sign-in page. Yes, reality is much different. But we should strive to hear all voices, especially in times of divisiveness. Shouting is a lot better than punching. And if that doesn't show how far we are down this slippery slope ... man oh man.

[0] Yes, this gets complicated. Yes, it has been complex for a long time. Yes, law is mostly settled on this. Yes, lawyers are expensive.

Re: Hundreds of Facebook employees walk out as Zuckerberg plans town hall tomorrow

#208

Post by jshaqaw »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #200
2arrs2ells wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teachers unions are very influential - especially in state and local elections (ex. described here as "political juggernauts" https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/02/14/are-teachers-u... )

Depends on the state. In some they have actual power; in others they're a boogyman pushed by conservatives who want to push for private schools a la Betsy DeVos. They're fairly strong in Canadian provinces.

Particularly in blue states the public unions have massive power because they can turnout voting blocs in generally low turnout primaries. Since a Democrat is 99 percent likely to win, the primaries is where the power is.

Re: Hundreds of Facebook employees walk out as Zuckerberg plans town hall tomorrow

#209

Post by aeternum »

tayo42 wrote: post #28

What's with the cynicism in this posts? They're trying to make a point and bring awareness. Who cares how hard it is. At least they're doing something. To give them credit they're making a political statement at work when we're told not to talk politics at work.

What statement are they making by taking paid vacation? FB employees have more vacation days than they can use currently.

Re: Hundreds of Facebook employees walk out as Zuckerberg plans town hall tomorrow

#210

Post by rramach »

hef19898 wrote: post #147
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the protection of low performers. Witness how many times the policeman who killed George Floyd had complaints against him and was protected by his union.

I'll go out on a limb, and say that the existence of police unions is not the most important factor behind police brutality, and the killing of people of colour by police, in the US. As one example, look at training and employment. It takes three years to become a police officer in Germany or France. Once you are one, you are employed for life (after a probation period). A lot of the training is focused on legal work…

> I'll go out on a limb, and say that the existence of police unions is not the most important factor behind police brutality, and the killing of people of colour by police, in the US.

Hard to say if it is the most important but it is a pretty important factor. See https://www.joincampaignzero.org/ for all research that indicates the unions are a key stumbling block.

Post reply on HN