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New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

theintercept.com

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Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#221

Post by MereInterest »

koheripbal wrote: post #207
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protecting work in this manner exists because the prevailing culture is that jobs solve social issues - we can't give the disadvantaged money directly because socialism, but we can pressure companies to make-work jobs because having a job means you deserve to be human, and it also creates situations where people want to protect their jobs for their income rather than any other reason. A UBI can possibly help prevent…

Anyone who wants a job, should be able to get one. Personally, I advocate UBW - Universal Basic Work - A guaranteed living-wage job for any American that wants one.

The failure mode of UBW is having make-work jobs with high oversight, no productive output, and no path forward to a different job. I'd recommend this essay [1], which goes into the topic in more detail than I can in a comment.

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/16/basic-income-not-basic...

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#222

Post by hef19898 »

0xy wrote: post #126
hef19898 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding stock units, if I had sold my AMZN RSUs as soon as they vested, I would have missed out by a lot of pay.

History is full of rock solid tech giants who have faltered. Amazon isn't invincible and cannot climb forever. In fact, they're under more competition than ever before. Just because this worked for you doesn't mean it's a good strategy at every company every time.

My view of RSUs was always to see them as a bonus, money that is nice to have but that I don't need. If I can't live my life with the base pay, I don't tke the job.

Sure, AMZN exploded over the last years, no idea why so. I had doubts i would ever go above 1k, not to speak about approaching 3k.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#223

Post by Mirioron »

rwmj wrote: post #131
Mirioron wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would they though? From what I understood Google has a workplace that heavily leans towards one political side in the US. It seems to even have been used to shame people to stay in line. What's the chance that something similar wouldn't happen with this Union?

There are no "closed shops" any more in the UK[1]. Any member can leave a union any time they like. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Act_1990

And that will stop people from shaming you on social media how? All you need to harm someone is to send a Twitter mob at them. If your union becomes political enough then toy can just do that, just like Google did.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#224

Post by adamsea »

koheripbal wrote: post #61
objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

> Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more bureaucratic Anyone who's actually had to deal with a union can agree with this point. At our company, a number of job functions are union-only work, meaning it is a violation of the union contract for any non-union employee to perform that work. In principle, you might think that makes sense, until you need to get something very simple done - that you are willing to…

> > Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more bureaucratic Anyone who's actually had to deal with a union can agree with this point.

What about the Writers Guild and the NBA players union? Would the people in those unions say that?

Semi-genuinely asking? ;)

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#225

Post by bamboozled »

KorfmannArno wrote: post #178
dijit wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same argument I see americans make a lot. "Unions are bad!", no, the concept is fine, you have some bad ones. "Police are bad!", no, the concept is fine, yours are just untrained and overburdened. "Public transport is bad, I need a car!", no, the concept is fine, you just have bad public transport and that forms your opinion.

Please give an example of good public transport. (I'm living in Germany)

Tokyo Subway is the most impeccably run system you'll ever seen in the world, it's really quite perfect. The trains even have warm seats in winter.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#226

Post by PragmaticPulp »

maxsilver wrote: post #136
koheripbal wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more bureaucratic Anyone who's actually had to deal with a union can agree with this point. At our company, a number of job functions are union-only work, meaning it is a violation of the union contract for any non-union employee to perform that work. In principle, you might think that makes sense, until you need to get something very simple done - that you are willing to…

> The alternative is to force everyone to unionize - and that's got its own problems. Does it really, though? Because literally every one of your complaints above would be solved, if your companies employees stopped actively fighting the union, and just simply joined it instead.

These rules impact the customers, too, not just the employees.

Have you ever been involved with trade show setup? The trade show unions have elaborate rules about work attendees can and cannot do for themselves.

At low-budget startups, we built our trade show booths ourselves. We had to carefully read the union rules during booth design so we made sure we could install our lighting without the use of a ladder and tools, for example. We used a lot of tool-less fasteners and kept everything low enough that our tallest person could reach it without standing on anything, because otherwise it would trigger union labor rules that required us to pay extra and wait for the union labor to get around to our booth.

Sure enough, on the trade show floor we had a union member watching us to make sure we didn’t get up on a ladder or use tools when installing certain pieces of equipment. Presumably they were getting paid to monitor us and ensure we didn’t actually do any of the forbidden work ourselves.

This is the inefficiency that people see when they think of unions. That inefficiency isn’t going away, because it’s central to how unions maximize income for their members. That inefficiency is why many developers don’t want to form or join unions.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#227

Post by JoeAltmaier »

koheripbal wrote: post #61
objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

> Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more bureaucratic Anyone who's actually had to deal with a union can agree with this point. At our company, a number of job functions are union-only work, meaning it is a violation of the union contract for any non-union employee to perform that work. In principle, you might think that makes sense, until you need to get something very simple done - that you are willing to…

Not just unions though. The IT department in a company I worked for had similar slow processes. I needed more RAM in my desktop, to process really huge log files. "It'll take about a month".

I could have gone to Best Buy, bought what I needed, installed it, and been back at work in an hour. Sigh. So I limped along.

A month later, along comes the new RAM and gets installed. But I was long done with the project that needed it.

Anyway, no fan of unions that get their feelers into every crack, in an attempt to pad union jobs. I am definitely in favor of some feedback that helps them be useful and productive - time-to-response on tickets for instance, that affected their pay maybe. Then we might all be happier.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#228

Post by JoeAltmaier »

dijit wrote: post #175
jcims wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For years now I've seen comments like this from Europeans every time unions come up in conversation online. You all need need to come work for a large union in the US. They are just not the same thing. I've had direct or indirect experience with Teamsters, CWA, NEA, IBEW and UBC. You can dress it up however you like but there are definitely 'union jobs' with all of the connotation that brings. Yes there are benefits…

This is the same argument I see americans make a lot. "Unions are bad!", no, the concept is fine, you have some bad ones. "Police are bad!", no, the concept is fine, yours are just untrained and overburdened. "Public transport is bad, I need a car!", no, the concept is fine, you just have bad public transport and that forms your opinion.

We don't have 'some bad ones'. We have a different definition and different goals for them. The unions are trying to pad jobs and pay, while keeping employees safe. Too much under one umbrella perhaps. But not just stupid American's who do it wrong. US unions are doing a great job, but to the wrong ends.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#229

Post by rb808 »

wpietri wrote: post #39
objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

There are certainly bad unions. But I think that often arises as a reaction to poisonous management behavior, a zero-sum mentality that treats workers as a cost center, not a value generator. It's a "fuck me, no fuck you" scenario. Your point about the Hollywood unions is a great one. Like tech, in Hollywood everybody has clear incentives to create a great final product. Positive-sum thinking usually part of the cult…

Hollywood unions are a prime reason lots of movies are made in Vancouver/Georgia/Other Countries now. Hollywood will end up like Detroit.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#230

Post by adamsea »

sushshshsh wrote: post #115
beowulfey wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you trust corporation-backed power (small amount of people in charge) versus union-backed power (power distributed across many people)? I find it fascinating, particularly in a country like America where democracy is a core part of our being. Unions allow people to vote on their own preferences, then use their collective voice to negotiate. If you don’t like some bullshit union practice, then that is the fault…

Ask any nurse, plumber, or teacher in the United States if they really feel they have the power to replace union reps that are perpetuating such practices. Power perpetuates power

True! So, better governing systems for a union, no?

You can’t get rid of power, just redistribute it. As flawed as democracy is, that’s what it attempts to do.

Or do we want to get rid of governments? ;)

In that case I’ll happily make the same snarky comment about whatever collection of humans accrue and then abuse power in our new government-free society.

People are naturally social. There will always be power, wielded in one way or another. But we have and will figure out schemes to wield it in a to benefit the many more than the few.

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