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

#391

Post by chrisseaton » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

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…

At the moment I negotiate my work against one entity: my employer.

If I had a union I'd have to negotiate my work against two entities: my employer and a union.

Why on earth would I want to do that? Seems more complicated and I'm less powerful in the negotiation.

Because the union would be 'on my side'? Lol I don't buy it. I think the union would be on the side of their management and whatever political hobby opinions they held, and possibly the majority of the members, but not on my side.

No thanks.

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

#392

Post by Nasrudith » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

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.

I have dealt with unemployment in the Great recession and know how nice that would be but the logistics of it are unfortunately very non-trivial, essentially in having everything already broken down to specified commoditized tasks. Annoyingly much of the work is "contextual" and would take far more effort to specify correctly to arbitrary outsiders and that is before work standards and cost of verification. Which would drive down wages of commoditized and halfway "automated" tasks further.

Ironically the best examples that come to mind are Uber and some other start ups which manage to both pay terribly and be hardly viable businesses.

UBW would probably work best in a productive sense in a massive stack of prespecified mini-jobs that could be done without supervision like "mow this section's grass, paint this fence".

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

#393

Post by Apocryphon » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #229

wpietri wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Favorable tax conditions are more likely the reason for that.

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

#394

Post by nashashmi » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:25 PM UTC

zentiggr wrote: post #366

nashashmi wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Union rules are about making sure a management team does not subject employees to random jobs. It is a about adding a control over management. In other words, in my office an employee is not allowed to hang a whiteboard on to a wall. Because building mandates only union employees can make such hardware modifications. Fine you are protecting the job of the union but what you are really doing is prevent job creep or sc…

> Fine you are protecting the job of the union but what you are really doing is prevent job creep or scope creep. I think that should really read "Fine you are trying to prevent scope creep but what you are really doing is protecting the union jobs." I've had my own experience of being forced to wait for a union worker to report onsite to accomplish a basic thing, only to be told when he showed up an hour after reque…

It is not the fault of the union then. It is the fault of rules and structure provincially eliminating minute problems and creating larger problems as a result.

It is also about territory control. You don't want to give up power to someone else. Typical society problems. The solution lies in how do you practice friendship with someone so cunning and selfish that you can be in the loosing seat quickly, yet still be friends and still be on neutral ground?

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

#395

Post by Apocryphon » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #120

kaibee wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no doubt in my mind that most programmers would at least listen to the pitch if it was to join a guild.

And yet guilds are traditionally vehicles for monopoly and control. All the things Americans complain about with regards to unions, are actually guild-like behaviour.

Yes, but guilds are also the names of player-formed free associations in MMOs, which are what jumps to most software engineers' minds when they hear the word.

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

#396

Post by epistasis » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

sho wrote: post #388

pietrovismara wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kinda shows you what privilege is and how it conditions the political discussion. If you never had to face a problem (never needed someone to protect you against greedy employers), it is so hard to understand why that it's relevant.

New rule: similar to Godwin's law, first person to mention "privilege" loses the argument. It is an unwinnable and deeply toxic ad hominem strategy; discount any merit of the argument and accuse the opponent of simply being too "privileged" to ever understand. Well guess what - that hole just goes down and down. If you can speak english and afford a computer, you're way too privileged. Electricity! Privilege. When it…

First off, that's not similar to Godwin's law. Secondly, telling to shut up because they used the word "privilege" is not very conducive to conversation. If you really think the word poses problems, could you explain what those problems are? Your sarcastic string of identities is not helpful for understanding what your point is.

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

#397

Post by ciupicri » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:33 PM UTC

nathanlied wrote: post #292

waheoo wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the concept is what leads to the corruption? E.g. communism. Im for unions, it beats the current situation, but im weary of the sales pitch.

Are you arguing that unions lead to communism? While Europe has a rich weave of social-democratic governments, that would hardly constitute communism. In fact, I'd daresay actual communist parties in Europe with any real power are a distinct rarity.

Socialism is a step towards communism. Unions taking quite a lot of power from the owners of companies is any a way abolition of private property.

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

#398

Post by ARandomerDude » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC

I'm surprised anyone is surprised by this.

Facebook's goal is to make money. All the politics on the side are just virtue signaling for the purposes of recruiting, lobbying, and winning in the court of public opinion. When there's real money on the table, politics, privacy, etc. take a back seat for them.

Not saying that's the way it ought to be. But that's how it is for FB, and many of the so-called "progressive" companies.

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

#399

Post by ghaff » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC

jcims wrote: post #266

Frondo wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, like dijit said, something modeled after the Screen Actors Guild. You rockstars get your million dollar salaries, no one gets overworked.

Great point. Guilds in general are a great way to reboot collective bargaining in the US. That thought occurred to me earlier this year and I completely forgot about it in this thread.

Although as one anecdotal counterpoint, read about some of the experiences Mike Jittlov had making Wizard of Speed and Time. He is playing it for effect in the film but it is at least semi-autobiographical.

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/31/movies/review-film-a-wiza...

One of the liveliest things about ''The Wizard of Speed and Time,'' aside from the frantic Mr. Jittlov himself, is the film's animosity toward Hollywood in general and the movie unions in particular. Mr. Jittlov, who himself resigned from the Directors' Guild in order to make this film free of union requirements, includes a sequence in which he visits one union office after another, being told in each that he must play by expensive and archaic rules if he expects to play this game at all.

When he tries to rent studio space, he is given a list of costs right down to the fee for a parking space, and winds up shooting in his own garage. And when he films an outdoor sequence in a park, a helicopter appears overhead with a loudspeaker to chastise him for trying to film without a permit. ''Maybe I shouldn't make films for a living,'' he muses dejectedly at one point. ''I've got a bicycle. I could deliver Steve's Pizzas.''

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

#400

Post by take_a_breath » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #261

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.

Except it doesn't. Labor rights does not have an appreciable affect on racial discrimination, environmental concerns, infrastructure, immigration concerns, defense against the passive/active actions against other hostile nation-states, or a lot of other things. And no, leveraging a union to force your company to drop a controversial customer has absolutely nothing to do with labor rights, that's just taking advantage…

Lots of absolutes and zero sources. I never claimed it was to drop customers, sounds like you are in an argument with yourself.

Unions could absolutely have an impact on racial discrimination and wealth disparities.