New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#242

Post by omginternets » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #70

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…

Well, sorry to be blunt but that's fucking stupid. Contrast that with my experience with Unions in Sweden; and that is that they basically don't exist except to ensure that workers rights are not infringed. So they'll be involved in a termination, or help negotiate overtime pay. There is no such thing as a "union job", it's just having what's referred to as a "collective agreement".

>There is no such thing as a "union job", it's just having what's referred to as a "collective agreement".

I won't retort with a similarly vulgar comment because:

1. we probably agree on the value of unions

2. I understand your exasperation with American ignorance and cultural bias on the subject

3. it's not constructive

However, it brings me no joy to assert that you are dead wrong. Union jobs can and do exist in places. The deleterious nature of these jobs is a subject of frequent debate in France: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_syndical

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

#243

Post by thesausageking » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #27

Clearly, they don't play online games with a chat lobby. They would have quickly learned that such features is useless, as it's easily bypassed: - in novembre, we should cost them the electrons. Ionize! - It's time we u_nionize - un10n1z3 people ! - let's fetch the U:\N\I\O\N\I\Z\E file - all go to http://unio.ni/ze - so we should do the u-thingy - what about talking to Mr Ulysse Nionize - never too late to ｕｎᎥｏｎｉｚｅ…

Facebook has one of the strongest AI research groups in the world led by Yann LeCun. They could build models that are quick good at finding all of these and similar versions.

And it doesn't need to be perfect. If you're an employee who may face severe repercussions if you mention unions, are you going to risk your job based on whether the filter catches your post?

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

#244

Post by koheripbal » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

squarefoot wrote: post #235

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…

This is really strange. Unions should be there to protect workers rights when they are abused from above, ie they give more strength to workers when necessary. In normal working conditions, unions should be invisible. Case in point: my girlfriend's workplace has been recently purchased by a multinational. Everything fine and well, until they had to pay her. Her monthly salary was cut by about €400 because they refuse…

The US is setup differently. The local/state labor departments usually handle pay issues, and almost always force the company to pay/backpay employees. I've dealt with them on occasion, and they do an amazing job in the US. When dealing with the State labor board, the company needs to prove their innocence (which is right because they are expected to have better record keeping).

Unions, unlike in Europe, function to protect hours for hourly workers, carve out job functions for union-only work, set standardized salaries, and prevent dismissals. Historically they did a lot more with worker safety, but that's been taken over by the federal gov't (OSHA).

It's just not comparable to the EU. The words almost mean entirely different things - and that's why talking about it in this forum can be very confusing, and often needlessly antagonistic - because the words just don't mean the same thing.

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

#245

Post by JoeAltmaier » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #239

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ne…

This happens in non-union jobs. Your issue is not with unions, but with bureaucracy, which is fair. To blame unions is not.

We can blame unions for bringing it to a fine art. Their goals are to preserve jobs and pad pay. That directly results in nonsense like this - 7 days to prepare for a meeting or plug in a monitor etc.

Sure unions are not the only ones doing this. But unions are doing this. So its 'fair' to blame them.

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

#246

Post by throwaway4715 » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 2:06 PM UTC

Multiple things can be true. 1) It was incredibly stupid for anyone to use suppressing unions as an example. 2) Employers should have control over the content on their internal systems (people get fired for things they say over email/Slack/etc. all the time). 3) This headline is some serious click bait.

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

#247

Post by shultays » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #63

0xy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the person to fight in my corner is me? Unions drag everyone's wages to an average. Poor performers get paid more, top performers get paid less. No thanks, I can negotiate for myself. Look at teachers and police unions for a prime example. Great police get paid the same as the police who racially profile. Great teachers get paid the same as the teachers who phone it in. Additionally unions protect incompetent…

To me it seems "top performers" are not really recognized and job jumpers are the ones that are paid more.

So averaging salaries makes it better?

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

#248

Post by knorker » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

CryptoPunk wrote: post #167

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…

Support for unions is based on a basic misunderstanding of economics. It is not mandates from the state that lead to wages and work conditions improving. It's rising demand from employers, as their revenue increases, and they compete with other employers for a limited pool of workers. Unions obstruct the flexibility and freedom of the market, and thereby hamper economic efficiency and competitiveness. Firms will, all…

> all things being equal

The whole point of unions is to affect change, so what does that sentence even mean?

All else being equal means the union did nothing to change anything, and therefore is 100% overhead.

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

#249

Post by omginternets » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

dri_ft wrote: post #188

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.

How many times does a concept need to be executed badly before you can call it a bad concept?

How many times must others get it right before you'll consider your own execution to be poor?

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

#250

Post by jakelazaroff » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #236

take_a_breath wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

== This issue simply must take a back seat to bigger problems in America.== What if labor rights is actually the single biggest problem that drives all the others? I can think of things like a higher minimum wage, paid sick leave, anti-discrimination in hiring, maternity/paternity leave, and guaranteed PTO that could be helped by unionization to make us a stronger country, collectively.

Maybe other labor rights - but definitely not Facebook six-figure-salary labor rights - the context of this post.

The problem is that the anti–union sentiment of the Facebook employees leaks into the tools they build. Facebook may give six–figure salaries, but Facebook Workplace is used by e.g. Walmart, which has a median salary of $19,177 [0] and a notoriously bad track record of labor violations.

[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-walmart-the-ceo-makes-1-188-...