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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

#211

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#212

Post by busterarm »

andrepd wrote: post #201
busterarm wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the right to determine the terms with with you negotiate away your labor is among the most sacred. Letting others do that for you is much closer to indentured servitude or slavery. The problem with all of these collectivsts' arguments is that they all believe themselves to be in their utopia's social planning committee rather than themselves a laborer. And that's if they made it past the "shoot all the troublemak…

I did not know "collective bargaining in a capitalist wage-labour system" was actually synonymous with "proletariat uprising", but here we are.

Forgive me, but in NYC where I'm from nearly 100% of the people talking about unions are Wobblies (IWW people) and nearly 100% of them are tankies but even if they aren't their union advocates for a revolution anyway.

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

#213

Post by lostcolony »

andrepd wrote: post #197
throwaway_95283 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"If working with dangerous machinery without union representation for 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, for company scrip was good enough for my great-grandfather when he was 8 years old, it's good enough for me!"

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

#214

Post by handsaway »

damagednoob wrote: post #60
handsaway wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

* Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin[1] * Great Chinese Famine[2] [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Sovi... . [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

* Bengal famine [1]

* Boer concentration camps [2]

* Various indigenous genocides [3]

* Gaza and West Bank occupation [4]

* 750k deaths a year due to long working hours [5]

* Millions in the atlantic slave trade [6]

* the 19th century cotton industry

* the modern cotton industry [7]

I can go on.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War_concentration_...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples [4] https://www.statista.com/chart/16516/israeli-palestinian-cas...

[5] https://www.who.int/news/item/16-09-2021-who-ilo-almost-2-mi...

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade

[7] https://ejfoundation.org/news-media/the-casualties-of-cotton

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

#215

Post by throwoutway »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #199
native_samples wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don’t see where it’s relating “conservatives” to the name “nazis”, but if that’s what the author’s intent is, then that is shameful.

Calling conservatives a detestable name of a former global enemy doesn’t make it acceptable. Instead it’s encouraging blind “hate” AND violent crimes

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

#216

Post by jltsiren »

adam_arthur wrote: post #103
bestcoder69 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Distorted wages for labor is not good for broader society Real life on planet earth disagrees pretty hard with you. Google "___est countries". Pick a metric that shows policy impacts. Say, health, happiness, etc. The kind of metrics that aren't abstract BS and can't be cherry-picked. Pick the first, say, five. Then look up their unionization rates. I'll spoil it for you. Nordic countries win (it doesn't even matter…

It's a good thing Europe can mooch off US innovation and Chinese manufacturing. Manufacturing that is not unionized, by the way. If the US went the way of Europe, technological innovation would slow dramatically, which I'll argue is a bad outcome for the world in the long run. What do you think the cost of basic goods would rise to if all the Chinese manufacturing centers unionized?

The US is not particularly innovative. Due to historical and geographic circumstances, it's in a unique position to attract foreign talent and foreign innovations and to monetize them.

It's a good environment for doing business. There is plenty of capital available, and the laws are usually reasonable. It's a large country that's sufficiently centralized that you don't have to localize everything for each state. And it's a stable environment that has mostly been isolated from the rest of the world and not touched by war in over 150 years.

As a drawback, the system really favors those who own over those who work. Even in places like the Silicon Valley, how much of the wealth goes to those who innovate and how much goes to those who fund the innovations? And how much goes to local property owners who just happened to be in the right place at the right time?

Americans don't study STEM as often as people in other developed countries, because they correctly see where the money is. There are many top STEM schools, but even they largely consist of foreign talent teaching foreign talent.

If the US went the way of Europe and stopped attracting foreign talent, I have no idea what would happen to tech innovation. The innovators and the innovations would still be there, but maybe there would not be as many people capable of taking advantage of the innovations.

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

#217

Post by giantg2 »

adam_arthur wrote: post #87
giantg2 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be badly run. If 5% are getting screwed over, it won't hurt the company.

Those 5% can argue for better conditions or leave. If their value is not commensurate with their asks, they won't get it. Both labor supply and demand needs to be competitive for an efficient society. If there's a single employer in town, and lack of mobility for residents, that's a monopoly on labor demand just the same as a union is a monopoly on labor supply

We currently have people leaving who are being replaced by others with higher salaries and similar contributions. So it's not like it's meritorious.

With the information and power imbalance between companies and workers, it seems the companies are already an oligopoly. Unions are the oligopoly on the opposing side to balance that out.

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

#218

Post by sokoloff »

anamexis wrote: post #139
duxup wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve found that to be untrue. Often what people think of as “toxic” are informal actions and behaviors that unions don’t resolve. Maybe they can sit with you in a meeting but that doesn’t change how that manager can behave.

True, but they can protect that manager from materially affecting you (wages, promotions, etc.)

Do people believe that a union can better determine the appropriate wages or promotion timeline for an employee than their manager? I’m skeptical.

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

#219

Post by ceejayoz »

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"...

C'mon. Beating up and killing Nazis has been a core part of American culture for 80 years or so. Comics, video games, movies. Is Inglorious Basterds anti-conservative? Is Captain America?

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

#220

Post by antisthenes »

adam_arthur wrote: post #103
bestcoder69 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Distorted wages for labor is not good for broader society Real life on planet earth disagrees pretty hard with you. Google "___est countries". Pick a metric that shows policy impacts. Say, health, happiness, etc. The kind of metrics that aren't abstract BS and can't be cherry-picked. Pick the first, say, five. Then look up their unionization rates. I'll spoil it for you. Nordic countries win (it doesn't even matter…

It's a good thing Europe can mooch off US innovation and Chinese manufacturing. Manufacturing that is not unionized, by the way. If the US went the way of Europe, technological innovation would slow dramatically, which I'll argue is a bad outcome for the world in the long run. What do you think the cost of basic goods would rise to if all the Chinese manufacturing centers unionized?

> It's a good thing Europe can mooch off US innovation and Chinese manufacturing. Manufacturing that is not unionized, by the way.

You have it completely wrong. The US is mooching off of EU and Chinese brain talent and has done so for the past 75 years, since the end of WWII. Most innovation that occurs in the US has been done thanks to exploiting highly educated labor that migrated here from elsewhere on the planet.

If we're talking about the tech success of Silicon Valley, again that has mostly been mooching off of the lack of regulations regarding the sale and use of personal user data. Thankfully, EU is finally beginning to install some protections in that sense.

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