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Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

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Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#331

Post by naravara »

umvi wrote: post #235
navigatesol wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No union ever said "Wow, this new CEO and management are super fair and reasonable. We are no longer necessary, let's dissolve and let them take the reigns." What an odd point of view. Homicides are down; should we loosen the laws? If management are "fair and reasonable", what do they care if there's a union on premises? Everyone just goes about their business.

> What an odd point of view. Homicides are down; should we loosen the laws? Sure, why not? Why does additional overhead added to systems always need to be permanent? It's like installing Norton Anti Virus and then never being able to uninstall it ever again. Sometimes I think it would be okay to say: "Wow, aviation has been safe for 20 years since 9/11, maybe locked cockpits and increased public awareness are good en…

Traffic fatalities are down, I guess we can get rid of the seat belts and airbags now?

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#332

Post by sokoloff »

Retra wrote: post #292
sokoloff wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a clear downgrade from "us and them vs our actual competition"

Whose competition? Other companies are not employee's competition, they are potential places to work. They only compete with the company, not the employees.

Kickstarter's prime competition is Indiegogo. Kickstarter employees who think their competition is against Kickstarter leadership rather than Indiegogo are at risk to seriously suboptimize, IMO. (The same is true for Kickstarter leadership, of course.)

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#333

Post by EpicEng »

minikites wrote: post #224
umvi wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it's just a symptom of the Shirky Principle: "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." Even if the workplace is not adversarial, any union will try to preserve the conditions that necessitate its continued existence. No union ever said "Wow, this new CEO and management are super fair and reasonable. We are no longer necessary, let's dissolve and let them take the reigns."

>No union ever said "Wow, this new CEO and management are super fair and reasonable. We are no longer necessary, let's dissolve and let them take the reigns." Name a company with a CEO and management who are super fair and reasonable (e.g. paying employees the full value of their labor instead of profiting from the surplus value created by the employee)

>e.g. paying employees the full value of their labor instead of profiting from the surplus value created by the employee)

Socialism is not the definition of "fair". One could argue that it's not "fair" for e.g. workers manufacturing BMW's to make more than those manufacturing Kias simply because BMW's demand a higher price or have better margins.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#334

Post by adamrezich »

omegaworks wrote: post #296
adamrezich wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who worked at a grocery store for a few months while waiting for his teacher's certification to get processed and sent to the state he'd moved to. It was a minimum-wage job, yet mandatory union membership at this grocery store chain meant that a cut of each of his minimum-wage paychecks was taken from him without anything he could do about it. The idea that unions are inherently, universally good is j…

So you'd rather your friend be worked harder for his minimum wage? You'd rather he be liable for the things people steal from the store? You'd rather him be fired and be without medical insurance if he slips and falls at work? Unions are why your friend isn't worked to death while he waits for his teacher's certification.

How does a part-time cheese monger get "worked to death," and what is Kroger's union doing to prevent this from happening?

I ask this 100% seriously.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#335

Post by eqdw »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #185
eqdw wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hostile, it's professional. I advocate for my interests, you advocate for your interests, and we negotiate to find out a compromise that works for both of us. During this process, I do not worry about your interests (that's your job), and you do not worry about mine. We trust each other to take responsibility for our own interests and proceed accordingly. I can understand why this would seem hostile to someo…

I don't understand how the union isn't basically holding the company hostage. A company can't fire all their union employees, so if the union decides they'll only accept a deal that includes a 50% raise, what do you do? I'm being serious here, from what I can tell it's not legal to fire your union employees. So what do you do?

I mean, it kind of is.

But also, that's what negotiation is. If the company didn't want to be occasionally held hostage, it should have included a "you can't hold us hostage" clause in its employees' work contracts, and also given them enough compensation to get them to agree with it.

But, super serious: If the union decides they will only accept a 50% raise, and the company _can't_ give it to them, what has happened several times before is that the company will cease operations of the facility that is unionized entirely, and move to a new geography where that union has no power.

Just as the union has the ability to hold the company hostage, management also has this ability. Theoretically, mass layoffs are not good for union members, and so they would not make such an obviously ridiculous demand.

However, you run in to major problems when for whatever reason the union does not think something is a ridiculous demand, when it is. Or, like I mentioned in my big comment somewhere else, if a union is representing multiple factories for one organization this can happen.

Say, hypothetically, the union for ABCTech represents ABCTech employees at two facilities, one in San Francisco and one in Seattle. Perhaps the union demands that, because the cost of living has risen so dramatically in SF, they require a 50% raise for all SF employees effective immediately. The company cannot afford this, and so they say no. The union says I don't care, fuck you, if you won't do this we won't work.

So ABCTech says well if we can't afford your contracts, we have to close up shop. They close the SF office. Every single employee there loses their job.

However, the union also represents ABCTech employees in Seattle. And now, ABCTech knows that the union is serious. They will make severe demands and not back down. This improves the unions bargaining power in the Seattle office, by sacrificing the SF office.

If you're the union, you're probably quite pleased with this state of affairs. If you're an employee of ABCTech in Seattle, doubly so. But maybe not so much if you were a (former) employee in SF

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#337

Post by matthewowen »

fastball wrote: post #314
omegaworks wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd rather your friend be worked harder for his minimum wage? You'd rather he be liable for the things people steal from the store? You'd rather him be fired and be without medical insurance if he slips and falls at work? Unions are why your friend isn't worked to death while he waits for his teacher's certification.

Yeah, literally everyone was worked to death before the existence of unions. /s

I mean... they kinda _were_

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#338

Post by hellllllllooo »

navigatesol wrote: post #189
tomohawk wrote: post #169

I wish them well, but having family members and friends work in unionized workplaces, it's not something I would ever do. It always seems to degenerate into an "us vs them" sort of thing whenever I talk to them about where they work. Why would I ever work some place where things are so adversarial? You also end up with this 3rd party involved in everything, creating all kinds of "rules" to make things "fair". Want to…

> It always seems to degenerate into an "us vs them" sort of thing whenever I talk to them about where they work. Why would I ever work some place where things are so adversarial? Have you considered that the adversarial workplace is the reason for unionizing in the first place?

Right. It's very hard to organize places where people are not being treated poorly. It's risky to unionize as people can loose their jobs in the process if the bosses find out before they have union protections so people will only take the chance if the conditions are bad.

Unions don't try to organize happy work places because they know how hard it is to do even when people are treated poorly. It's not worth the effort as people are not motivated to organize. Suggesting that people are going through the long hard process of unionizing for no real reason suggests a lack of understanding of the process and the pushback from management that happens.

People don't unionize for the fun of it. It's a long hard slog that often fails.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#339

Post by eqdw »

gamblor956 wrote: post #232
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how the union isn't basically holding the company hostage. A company can't fire all their union employees, so if the union decides they'll only accept a deal that includes a 50% raise, what do you do? I'm being serious here, from what I can tell it's not legal to fire your union employees. So what do you do?

It's perfectly legal for a business to fire union employees. The US is an at-will country, and businesses are entitled to terminate employees for financial reasons. Even public sector unions can't prevent terminations for financial reasons, though they negotiated no-fire clauses into their union contracts decades ago.

Not true. At-will is state by state. And, of course, there is nothing stopping either you or your employer from negotiating different terms.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#340

Post by naravara »

InTheArena wrote: post #288
Nikkau wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It always seems to degenerate into an "us vs them" That's the point, "us vs them" is pretty good upgrade from "me vs them"

> That's the point, "us vs them" is pretty good upgrade from "me vs them" But a huge step down from "Us"

>But a huge step down from "Us"

This sounds like an argument for full worker control/employee ownership, not an argument against a union.

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