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Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

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Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#421

Post by cameronbrown »

lexs wrote: post #218
cameronbrown wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just annoyed because there are so many people out there working in supermarkets treat like dirt, yet 'software engineers' who are paid huge amounts still want to unionise? Where exactly is the struggle here? I am not anti-unionist by a country mile, but I can't sympathise with this group.

You can only unionise if you struggle?

I view unions as something that's only essential in the worst case scenario. If you truly need one then I fully support that, but they come with a huge cost to innovation. It's important to not forget the trade off.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#422

Post by dunkelheit »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #382
dunkelheit wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things other than salary to consider: open-space offices, unpaid overtime, increase in managerial oversight (pointless standups etc.), erosion of work time/free time boundary, onerous non-compete/intellectual property clauses in employment contracts. Everybody is constantly bitching about those things but despite the claimed shortage of software engineers they seem to only get worse with time. I don't claim that…

You say "increase in managerial oversight", but then mention standups. That's about the least onerous oversight possible. I understand not liking standups, but... that's not at the level of excessive management oversight. Excessive management oversight is a whole different level. (And yes, I know, standups can be part of that whole different level. That's the one you specifically mentioned, though. If that's the exce…

So, do you agree that managerial oversight is increasing or not? Of course standups can be helpful and unobtrusive, but they also often degrade into shamefests with the sole purpose of forcing everybody to conjure up reasons why they are not done yet.

And of course I agree that they are not the most annoying thing possible. Let's wait a few more years until something like DingTalk (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17678571) becomes popular in Western companies.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#423

Post by briandear »

dangus wrote: post #5
echelon wrote: post #3

I really don't understand this. A career in software is one of the most pampered and lucrative ones I can think of. Due to the shortage of software engineers, we can go anywhere and get a job instantly. The only downside I can think of is ageism, but then again, I have colleagues in their 50s and 60s where I work. But I suppose this isn't universal. (I'm in Atlanta and we have a lot of older workers. Age doesn't seem…

Just look at their employee reviews. The management there seems toxic. I implore you to also think twice about the way in which you are demonizing unions. Sure, some unions aren’t the best, but what you’re saying is 100% discounting the benefits that a union can bring to employees. Union dues can more than pay for themselves in wage negotiation. They can restrict overwork, unpaid overtime (see the special salaried ov…

> Union dues can more than pay for themselves in wage negotiation.

Those negotiations can also drag down your salary potential as well. You get paid what everyone else gets paid. If you warm the chair longer, you get paid more, regardless of any innovation or extra value you bring to the business.

You have incentivized mediocrity because what’s the point of doing anything beyond the minimum requirements? It isn’t like you’re going to get a raise for being especially clever.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#424

Post by booboolayla »

karatestomp wrote: post #253
iandanforth wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like the above fascinate me. The emotional appeal of "choice" seems to have no end. You can employ it to fight unions, health care, public schools anything you want. Similarly if you can successfully attach "right" (as in "a right") to your rhetoric you can draw out pride, anger, indignation, all sorts of powerful emotions. I recently learned that Frank Luntz ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz ) is…

Weirdly, this kind of "freedom" is often freedom that's of zero or negative value to me. Take the "freedom" lost by switching to single payer healthcare or similar: oh, no, I don't get to rely on private insurance and deal directly with private medical provider billing departments anymore, and spend tens of hours fixing their mistakes and attempts to screw me every time I use medical care, plus all the time trying to…

Do left-leaning Americans truly feel this way about single payer healthcare? Do you really not understand that SPH fixes only one problem - poor people getting substandard healthcare for free, at the taxpayer's expense? Do you really think you won't have to "spend tens of hours fixing their mistakes and attempts to screw me" when dealing with poorly paid doctors and staff that can't get laid off due to insane rules of SPH? Do you really not know about the dirty secret of places with SPH, which is that whoever has the means still goes to a private healthcare because the service is 1000x better?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#425

Post by karatestomp »

majormajor wrote: post #298
karatestomp wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for one thing, the good times won't last forever. Now's the time to prepare for the bad—it's much harder to organize when you're weak. For another, despite our compensation we're still much weaker at the bargaining table, individually, than our employers. See how casually so many of them reject applicants just to make sure "false positives" don't get through the hiring pipeline. I'm not saying they shouldn't do…

> For another, despite our compensation we're still much weaker at the bargaining table, individually, than our employers. See how casually so many of them reject applicants just to make sure "false positives" don't get through the hiring pipeline. I'm not saying they shouldn't do that—it's not my point—but it's definitely a sign of who's setting the terms of these interactions, and where the power is. And it'd be in…

My point is just that, despite high comp at some companies, rejecting a candidate is still considered a very "cheap" move from employers' perspective (so: their labor negotiating position is still strong, despite high comp)—I explicitly wasn't trying to get into the correctness of that sort of policy or the environment that creates it, beyond its probably not being viable if tech companies' negotiating positions were meaningfully weaker than a normal employer.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#426

Post by gacklesmom »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #219
zip1234 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a uncle that was a bricklayer and moved somewhere that bricklayers were in demand so that he could get paid more. He was not a union member. When the union found out he was doing the same work for slightly less, they sent some people over to threaten his life if he didn't join union or leave. He left.

What's with the anecdotes on this thread? The OP was trying to make substantive statements about unions in general and why anecdotes are ineffective in describing them, and your counter was to provide yet another anecdote?

Anti-union astroturfing is to be expected in a thread like this. Other tech companies are terrified of something similar happening, and are going all-out with misinformation.

The best thing you can do is upvote factual information.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#428

Post by wcfields »

_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…

> About the time I had one PC opened up and was installing the NIC, one of the local IT guys dropped by and told me "You can't do that." 'Why not?', I asked. "That's not your job.", he replies.

I say this as a non-union IT Tech who works at convention centers and trade-shows regularly and really wishes at times I could just grab a hole saw to make the mouse-hole to run my cables through:

It's not your job. If there was a need for more NICs to be installed the company needs to pay for the necessary labor to make that happen.

Similarly anyone could pick up a broom and sweep the job floor, but without clear delineation that is ONLY the janitors job then why not make the electricians sweep the floors when they're walking back?

> Unions, in my experience, exist to help keep mediocre, unmotivated employees employed. One has no incentive to excel, as promotions are based on years "served", much like prison.

Great! Not everyone has to be motivated to work or excel! I come to my job, do the job, and go home. It's a business transaction.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#429

Post by carapace »

echelon wrote: post #3

I really don't understand this. A career in software is one of the most pampered and lucrative ones I can think of. Due to the shortage of software engineers, we can go anywhere and get a job instantly. The only downside I can think of is ageism, but then again, I have colleagues in their 50s and 60s where I work. But I suppose this isn't universal. (I'm in Atlanta and we have a lot of older workers. Age doesn't seem…

I've already mentioned this twice in other comments here, so I feel like I'm overdoing it, but I'm sincerely interested in your (and others') opinions:

About six years back it came out that the big tech companies were conspiring against their own employees:

https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage...

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#430

Post by elicash »

mdonahoe wrote: post #411
elicash wrote: post #379

1. Why do tech workers need a union? If you want to improve your workplace, you have additional leverage to fight for changes if you're in a union. There's often very little you can do alone. This might be things like pay, or it might be something else entirely. 2. But aren't tech workers elite coddled rich kids who are lucky to make what they receive? I mean, no. But even if so, high pay doesn't stop athletes from j…

"Athletes unionize" is one of the better arguments I've heard for why devs should. I'm curious to learn more about the origins of the players' union.

Wish I knew more about it.

Here's what the NFLPA has on their website: https://www.nflpa.com/about/history

One of the reasons I like it as an example is it shows how much more a union can do than simply negotiate raises, and that they don't even have to do that part at all! You can collectively bargain over anything, and also a union can theoretically serve as a type of association that has other benefits. There's room for a ton of innovation and creativity here.

You don't see people argue that their union means mediocre football players can't get fired. The values of the workers can absolutely be shared by the union (the players are the union) -- and if you want to negotiate for even higher pay rather than making it harder to fire folks, you can do that.

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