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Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

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Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#261

Post by rafaelvasco »

frenchyatwork wrote: post #238
rafaelvasco wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Democracy could only work effectively if most of the population is very well educated. Which is not the case, specially in under developed countries; Most of the time, the ignorance and lack of a more developed consciousness in a country citizens benefits those that are in power, as ignorant people are much easier to manipulate so that it stays that way;

> Democracy could only work effectively if most of the population is very well educated. Certainly if you're looking at tech jobs, the "population" is reasonably well educated.

I'm talking about education in a much bigger scope. Not referring to the Kickstarter situation at all; Tech education is not enough. I'm talking about political, social, emotional, economical etc, education; This level of education is a life long pursue. Schools are not enough. Internet is not enough;

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#262

Post by lyrr »

jaredtn wrote: post #221

I would love to understand the dynamic better, so please correct me here or chime in. Tech is has one of the best combinations of (lucrative + meritocratic) I've seen. Fields that pay similarly or better (law, medicine, investment banking) require either significant time-consuming credentials or significant time investment as an underlying (like IB analyst). The interview process does require intensive preparation to…

I don't know how you can fail to see how an organised and unified workforce will always benefit all workers in a firm. Pitting 'top performers' against the rest, scaremongering about 'lazy workers' etc. just divides the workforce and allows management/owners to exploit/underpay workers as a whole. The company would not be able to function/make as good a profit as it does without ALL workers contributing. If a worker truly is lazy/not pulling their weight, they get fired. A union doesn't stop that. A union is a unified voice for workers that can demand rightfully, better working conditions, better pay, better benefits.

This fiction that somehow tech workers should avoid unions because their pay is so well is utter corporate propaganda. The money won't always be this good people, especially as more and more are told to enter the industry. I know HackerNews is an entrepreneurial haven but it's funny to me how people here, with all their technical wisdom, are so blind to any benefits to workers and aversion to anything seen as 'socialist'.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#263

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

aty268 wrote: post #215
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you work in tech doesn't mean you can't get exploited. And just "go somewhere else" isn't possible for everyone.

And why would it not be? If I don't like my job, I get another one. It's easier to do this as a software engineer than almost anything else.

Countless reasons why.

Low job supply in your area and inability to move due to family and other responsibilities tying you down or too busy taking care of your kids to have time to interview and study leetcode or too little time spent on a gig getting you labeled as a job hopper or as a problematic employee by other companies if you don't have enough experience backing you up.

I feel you have no idea how complex people's lives can be.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#264

Post by SSSDFRO »

shmerl wrote: post #110

What exactly does it give the workers, better ways of dealing with management?

It gives workers a way out of their job. With a union, Kickstarter will be less likely to compete with similar companies that come out of China or anywhere else who realizes that a free market provides better outcomes for the majority of constituents.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#265

Post by metalliqaz »

calderarrow wrote: post #235

Coming from a public accounting background, I’ve seen a variety of businesses. Somewhat obviously, I’ve seen some be successful with unions and others be successful without, which makes sense, as unions are neither inherently good nor bad. They are a tool which can change the power dynamic and incentive structure of workers and employers throughout an organization, but there is nothing inherent about having a union t…

The (original) article only mentioned one grievance, that Kickstarter removed a "punch nazis" project and the employees revolted. Honestly it sounds like they had it pretty good.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#266

Post by michaelt »

commandlinefan wrote: post #76
rolltiide wrote: post #25

Opinions aside, you have to see the writing is on the wall.

However you feel about unions (and I personally have many reservations), if tech workers unionize, management will have nobody to blame but themselves. They've had decades to listen to us, and they've responded with open offices, JIRA (or the equivalent) ticket quotas, unpaid overtime, whiteboard coding interviews and zero training. We're well paid but besides that, I'd be hard-pressed to think of a way we could coll…

> I'd be hard-pressed to think of a way we could collectively be treated with any more contempt than we already are.

I'm guessing you've never worked a job in the retail, warehouse or food service industries :)

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#267

Post by lexs »

nradov wrote: post #92
_sbrk wrote: post #68

I worked in a union shop once, as a summer intern. Every day, we were told to be in the break room at 7:59am to begin promptly at the 8am bell. By 4:30 or 4:45pm, everyone was back in there, waiting for the clock to hit 5pm. One day, I needed to connect two PCs together, which was approved by boss as they would be isolated from the network. So, being the diligent type, I went off and found some network cards and a ca…

A friend of mine worked as a developer at defense contractor with mostly union employees. One time they moved him to a different cubicle. Due to union work rules he literally had to wait two days for a union electrician to come by and plug his desktop computer into the wall socket. Just ridiculous.

That exact same scenario happened to me but it wasn't at a union shop. Seems weird to blame this on unions in general. Dumb rules are dumb rules...

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#268

Post by claudiawerner »

aty268 wrote: post #215
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you work in tech doesn't mean you can't get exploited. And just "go somewhere else" isn't possible for everyone.

And why would it not be? If I don't like my job, I get another one. It's easier to do this as a software engineer than almost anything else.

Being easy to do does not mean that it should be expected or usual to do - and even then, if it wasn't easy to do for just a single person in the company, they now have another layer of protection against that. Not every employee lives in the same personal circumstance.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#269

Post by lawnchair_larry »

wanderingjew wrote: post #198
nosefrog wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t you contribute to the conversation by talking about your own experience with unions?

While not the grandparent post, I can add some of my own experiences with unions: Once, when workers in Chicago supported a general strike in support of an eight-hour workday, police shot and killed a number of workers. [1]. Someone threw dynamite into a crowd. A lot of people died, but we got that eight hour workday. Another time, workers protested for higher wages, but the company owners hired private security and…

Great, what does that have to do with the tech industry

And please take inflammatory terms like “bootlicker” to your antifa meetup. We are adults.

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