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How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry

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Re: How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry

#341

Post by CPLX »

missedthecue wrote: post #208
CPLX wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think professional sports leagues and the movie business base opportunities and compensation on seniority I don't know what to tell you. Those fields are almost completely unionized. There's no obvious reason to think that the market for high skilled technical workers would be substantially different.

If you don't think the UAW or ILWU bases opportunities and compensation on seniority I don't know what to tell you

Of course they do.

The difference is between commodity labor and creative, talent-driven, or IP based production, and it seems clear which is a better metaphor for software engineers.

Re: How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry

#342

Post by username90 »

skitout wrote: post #337
username90 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The union doesn't include every employee group at kickstarter. For example no managers or supervisors are included. Also the fact that they have to even vote is evidence that they want to force people to join, or at least force them to pay union dues. Otherwise why not create a union without a vote instead?

So far I seen no indication (and you provided none) that people are forced to join the union, and seen indication that people can "freely" chose to join or not. And that most people "freely" chose to join the union - while some could be part of the union and chose not to be. What is you point ?

Look, they voted about it meaning they forced people to pay dues. Paying dues is the same thing as joining. In Europe we don't do that, you just go to a site and say you want to join and then you are in a union and you don't pay to any union if you don't. no need to vote or talk to colleagues about anything, that is just stupid. I can join and leave a union whenever I want, if USA had such unions then they would already have huge union participation among software engineers and we wouldn't need these stupid discussions since you could join a union if you want and I could ignore it if I want, you don't have to convince your colleagues to join just because you want one.

Re: How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry

#343

Post by PeterStuer »

bsenftner wrote: post #304
brushfoot wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a strawman. You're saying that those who disagree with tech unions are: - Autistic - Uneducated and naive ("real soon now," presumably said with a folksy twang) - "Very young" - Too cowardly or ethically naive to object to bad working conditions Here's a more charitable possibility: Opponents may just not see the need at this point. Or they may dislike union culture. Unionizing isn't all positive. There…

I was "that guy" at EA during the "EA Spouse" era that tried unsuccessfully to get any union effort started at all. The strawman list above only needs one proponent per developer group and no one in that group joins the effort. I'd say the "ethically naive" trait is the strongest.

The gaming industry is most certainly rife with exploiting passion.

Re: How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry

#344

Post by scsilver »

missedthecue wrote: post #209
scsilver wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We dont need a union, we need a stronger professional organization with appropriate licensing/apprenticeship, akin to other engineers, doctors, accountants, lawyers ect.

Increased barriers to entry for SWE?

Yeah, make it an FE and PE and we will get some stability in our lives and be allowed to focus on case studies rather than solving abstract puzzles in a hazing ritual. Early in the career the low barrier is great, later in the career, other engineers have much more reasonable career growth.

Re: How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry

#345

Post by bananaface »

mattlondon wrote: post #282
bananaface wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the protection work in the case of e.g. Brexit going badly? Do they have insurance policies that pay out if the UK economy tanks?

I was thinking more if the economic conditions after brexit/COVID are bad and one's employer starts doing some dodgy things, you have some element of protection. So I was thinking unfair dismissal, poorly executed/rushed/unfair "redundancy", and general other unfavourable things from a company that is struggling. Or maybe your employer suddenly thinks it doesn't need to care about equality or employment law and the l…

Thank you for explaining.

Re: How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry

#346

Post by philliphaydon »

ausbah wrote: post #287
philliphaydon wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't, that's a myth. What hurts education is lack of funding for education. The pay being the same between a good teacher and a bad teacher, doesn't hurt education? Or teachers unions pushing to get tenure preventing bad teachers from being fired, and being able to collect a pay slip for doing no work while waiting a year for disciplinary hearing?

teacher's unions are one of the few tools educators have to fight back against the chronic cuts to public education that have been occurring in America. this benefits students and educational facilities by helping get more state funding, helps keeps teacher pay at a more competitive level (hopefully keeping "good teachers" in their jobs), among other things I think the points you raise are valid, but given what an ab…

Thanks for the insights. Yeah you raise good points I hadn't considered. I admit I know very little, what I know is based on what people have told me (few friends living in the US) and watching the documentaries "Waiting for Superman", "College Conspiracy", and "Stupid in America".

Re: How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry

#347

Post by sarcher »

segmondy wrote: post #340
abeppu wrote: post #3

I find this interesting because I don't fully understand how tech became so opposed to unions. Many in our industry are quite jaded about the poor behavior of large corporations. Perhaps there are also reasons to be distrustful of unions. But mostly we accept working with or doing business with the former, and entirely eschewing the latter. Why have we decided that untrustworthy, sometimes poorly managed organization…

Do you know any union worker making $350k? or $500k? With unions, you ain't gonna get that. As much as I like unions for somethings, I'm not a fan. I'm in Detroit area. I have heard horror stories of many people who work in the car industry and do crazy things and can't easily get fired because of unions. Once I was downtown a few years ago, and they were shooting a movie and they needed to reshoot a scene, but a sem…

SAG-AFTRA and DGA have members in that range. I'm guessing Equity has some as well.

The AMA isn't technically a union, but performs similar functions.

Re: How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry

#348

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #166
renewiltord wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fair objection, but as you well know, it takes work to extract information. Rarely will anyone show you their hand. If you never lift a rock, you never find the snake below, but the snake may exist below nonetheless. And if that rock has had a snake below it before then maybe you don't put your hands underneath to lift the rock. But you can win me over trivially. Take your union. Add a single immutable tenet: This…

> But you can win me over trivially I think you will find that most unions support immigration, and provide protections for immigrants. For example, the largest union in the US, the AFL-CIO, is currently running a "Protect All Workers" campaign[1] specifically for immigrant protections: > In recent weeks, the federal government took vital steps to address our national health emergency and mitigate its economic damage…

It is, however, worth noting that historically unions were virulently anti-immigrant, seeing them as competitors who lowered wages. Their change in stance is relatively recent and largely involuntary because their attempts to suppress immigration collapsed.

Given the anti H1-B sentiment often displayed in various places, should any of the foreign-born here trust that a software developer union would remain pro-immigration? I wouldn't; there's too much historical precedent.

Re: How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry

#349

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

twblalock wrote: post #225
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if (when) the markets crash by 40% and show no sign of recovery, salary will remain a lot more constant than total comp. Seriously markets only go up (and the absurd inflation of tech company stock prices since 2008) is a deep, deep problem with society which will inevitably end.

That's not the point. Companies exist to reward their shareholders. Employees at most companies get paid as little as possible, as long as they don't quit. At tech companies, employees are shareholders and therefore they get to be part of the group of people that the company exists to reward. If you approach your stock compensation with that understanding, you'll be fine. If you expect the stock to only ever increase…

But the question was why one would report salary rather than total comp. I provided a potential answer to that question.

Re: How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry

#350

Post by skitout »

username90 wrote: post #342
skitout wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far I seen no indication (and you provided none) that people are forced to join the union, and seen indication that people can "freely" chose to join or not. And that most people "freely" chose to join the union - while some could be part of the union and chose not to be. What is you point ?

Look, they voted about it meaning they forced people to pay dues. Paying dues is the same thing as joining. In Europe we don't do that, you just go to a site and say you want to join and then you are in a union and you don't pay to any union if you don't. no need to vote or talk to colleagues about anything, that is just stupid. I can join and leave a union whenever I want, if USA had such unions then they would alre…

"meaning they forced people to pay dues" ; there are nothing about this specific point in what I read.

Money helps, but union main strength comes from number of member and support. So paying for it or being member is in all case 2 very different things. And it seems workers are free to join or not, and most of them decided to join.

I don't know the situation of all European countries, but in France, unions gets some money from their member, but they also get some money from the state (ie taxppayers), and some elected union/worker representatives have some work time paid by the company to work on workers representation and union stuff

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