Kickstarter employees vote to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#461

Post by zpallin » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

proc0 wrote: post #419

zpallin wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generally speaking for well run, ethical companies, whose management actively try to do the right thing, unions add unnecessary redundancy and bureaucracy. The only type of "well run, ethical companies" where unions are redundant are worker-owned cooperatives . Otherwise, an employer, regardless of how ethical they are, can never replicate the most critical aspect of unions: collective bargaining rights . Sure, an…

Bargaining rights don't come for free. At the end of the day, unless you are the owner of the company or union leaders, you are basically serving two masters.

Agreed, completely. I support unions, but I see the best way forward to both increase equality and reduce corporate corruption is the Mondragon model of worker-owned cooperative federations. Unions are not an advance in this direction at all, merely a check on corporate ownership. It's better than nothing, but it's not the end-all to worker protections.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#462

Post by realityking » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

yibg wrote: post #439

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…

Just in terms of salary isn’t an union somewhat contradictory to the engineering ethos of meritocracy? I mean we’d like to think that the good ideas win and impact and outcome matters. We hold up the 10x engineers and those that make an outsized contribution to the industry / company / product right? Shouldn’t they get higher compensation compared to the rest of the work force? How do we square that with collective b…

It always depends how the union works and what they negotiate for. Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, Charlize Theron and Tom Hanks are all members of a union (SAG-AFTRA) and it doesn't seem to have prevented them for making 10x the money of an unknown actor.

That said, there's a risk - even a high one - that Union Executives, over time, become rent seekers instead of advocates for their members. It's like government, every Union gets the executive it deserves.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#463

Post by driverdan » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

celdon25 wrote: post #274

dangus wrote: post #2

> That dynamic doesn’t reflect who we are as a company, how we interact, how we make decisions, or where we need to go. We believe that in many ways it would set us back, and that the us vs. them binary already has. What a shameful statement. Kickstarter has a so-so 3.6 on Glassdoor, and a sub-50% CEO approval rating. A lot of reviews talk about a secretive, insulated management group. You don’t see companies with 4.…

> Kickstarter has a so-so 3.6 on Glassdoor Glassdoor's ratings are not terribly reliable. Here's something I wrote previously about my own experience with using it: ----- I left a poor review for an employer only one time in the 10 years or so I've been on Glassdoor (there were only a couple other reviews). And almost immediately after, there were about 20 or 30 5 star reviews posted in a short amount of time. The co…

One of my past employers did something like this. We had some negative reviews from job candidates that weren't hired. At an all hands our CEO encouraged everyone to leave honest feedback on Glassdoor. A lot of employees did, bumping our score up. It wasn't dishonest or misleading, all of the reviews were real.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#464

Post by eropple » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

yibg wrote: post #439

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…

Just in terms of salary isn’t an union somewhat contradictory to the engineering ethos of meritocracy? I mean we’d like to think that the good ideas win and impact and outcome matters. We hold up the 10x engineers and those that make an outsized contribution to the industry / company / product right? Shouldn’t they get higher compensation compared to the rest of the work force? How do we square that with collective b…

> the engineering ethos of meritocracy

You know what's pretty inarguably a real "meritocracy"? Professional sports players. And they're all unionized.

Tech does not meaningfully or significantly adhere to any ethos of meritocracy; it is exactly as political as anything else. The part that really melts your brain is when you realize that the "meritocracy" myth is peddled so the people who don't realize they're bad at politics are losing.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#465

Post by yibg » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

new_realist wrote: post #442

yibg wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in terms of salary isn’t an union somewhat contradictory to the engineering ethos of meritocracy? I mean we’d like to think that the good ideas win and impact and outcome matters. We hold up the 10x engineers and those that make an outsized contribution to the industry / company / product right? Shouldn’t they get higher compensation compared to the rest of the work force? How do we square that with collective b…

The two ideas are not incompatible. You can set a company-wide curve for promotions.

What about outside of promotions? I’m not going to get promoted every year and I certainly don’t want to only be able to get a sizable increase tied with promotions.

Although I do agree they are not fundamentally incompatible. You can have a large number of hands within a job level and have the ability to jump bands for example. But then this somewhat goes against the typical union (at least in the US) thinking where there is typically a step progression “up”.

Fundamentally, at least in terms of compensation, this seems to be about how we view money in general rather than specifics of unions. Ie should everyone be paid more or less the same for the same job or should there be wildly different compensation. For unions I typically see salaries clustered, that every senior engineer for example does more or less the same job. Currently in tech the view isn’t that. It’s more the one senior engineer can dramatically out perform another and should be compensated accordingly.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#466

Post by bluGill » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

tikhonj wrote: post #343

pathseeker wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Somewhat obviously, I’ve seen some be successful with unions and others be successful without From the company perspective maybe, but I've not seen a union in the US that successfully rewards high performing employees over mediocre lifers. Overachievers end up leaving and you're left with no innovation. Do you have any examples of unions that have solved this problem?

Aren't a lot of professional sports leagues unionized? I know that NBA players have a union, and top players definitely get rewarded well.

When most sports unions started professional players were not well paid. In the 1950s many of the best baseball players didn't play for professional teams because a local hardware store in some small town offered them better wages if they would work during the day and play on the town team on weekends!

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#467

Post by anarchodev » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #448

anarchodev wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's correct. Simply disagreeing with Nazis is ineffectual and is very common among those with sympathies toward them as a shield from criticism. I'd prefer to work with people who are actively opposed to them. Sorry if that wasn't clear somehow.

Well, if everybody disagreed with them there wouldn't be any, so maybe that's enough.

How would people disagreeing with Nazis get rid of them? Does that work with anything else?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#468

Post by thu2111 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #449

cortesoft wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason athletes unionize, though, is because they play for monopoly leagues; there are no competitors for the top leagues in most American sports, so it isn't like you can just leave and play in the other NBA if you don't like their practices.

Well, not a monopoly, but Apple, Google, and several other major Silicon Valley corporations did collude to keep developer salaries low.

That was discovered and busted by the government. It appears unions aren't necessary to end wage fixing cartels.

And especially, note that unions are wage fixing cartels!

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#469

Post by yibg » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #450

yibg wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in terms of salary isn’t an union somewhat contradictory to the engineering ethos of meritocracy? I mean we’d like to think that the good ideas win and impact and outcome matters. We hold up the 10x engineers and those that make an outsized contribution to the industry / company / product right? Shouldn’t they get higher compensation compared to the rest of the work force? How do we square that with collective b…

Actors are unionized (or “guildized”, which is basically the same thing), but their pay varies wildly and seems to be more or less relative to their objective value.

That’s a good example. I don’t know much about it, what benefits does the union in this case provide that isn’t achievable without one?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#470

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #415

hello_moto wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Offer highly competitive salaries Every time I see this statement, I can't help it but wonder why people don't put some estimate what constitutes "highly competitive". FAANG just shoot everybody expectation to the roof and non-FAANG is having hard time to compete in salary (sure, there are some exception but they are exceptions).

From the workers' perspective, why should we care exactly? That sounds like a you problem. If you aren't able to pay your workers, I'm not sure why you think you shouldn't just go out of business. People aren't obligated to work for substandard wages so you can get rich. I certainly think that there are a lot of ways in which the playing field needs to be evened between small and big companies, so that the playing fi…

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