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Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

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Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#51

Post by sokoloff »

Shoue wrote: post #43
bluesign wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it is little worse than unions done good.

That's an odd critique considering coops exist to solve the friction between unions and businesses by building the democratic control into the business itself, avoiding the need for a union. Especially when you consider all the union busting tactics used by leadership at traditional businesses – how are you even supposed to form a union when they won't let you? Coops come at that from a different angle: you get democ…

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/what-we-do/conduct-elections

If you have broad support from the employee base, “they” can’t block a union certification election. If you’re having trouble forming a union, you’re probably struggling at the “get employees to want your union” step in the process.

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#53

Post by politelemon »

mypastself wrote: post #13

It’s high time I stopped reading Medium articles shared here. I got the distinct feeling I was being sold something while reading it, and the last paragraph confirmed it. It’s filled with vague, corporatey platitudes about ego and altruism, and there’s almost nothing in it about how this concept applies specifically to tech . The supposed “cons” sound like the ad equivalents of leading questions: > The relationships…

A not insignificant portion of HN posts are selling something and not all are related to tech. It's worth having a similar skepticism for other posts, it's eye opening

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#54

Post by ankaAr »

The article is ok doing the questions if you wants this or this and if you would like to work or build a coop if you wants based on that.., and the situation that you has been fired.

Anyway it is very naive at least.

Where the clients come from?

If you has been fired, look for another job.

If you has been fired and you were working with other 10 people that are skilled, and you like to work together and you knows someone that want your skills or you know how to sell yourself and you wants to take your own decisions as a group (like in a pirate boat), then yes, a coop is a choice.

It is not the panacea, it is hard, you will deal with things than never before faced, and is not like you are with people to face that together, you are alone together to face that. I talk for myself and coming form IT i hate bourocracy. And you must to deal with that every day, or at least you must to know that some people must to deal with that, someone. It is a must. Spoiler: you can hire people to do that for youyou, but the reason you build a coop is that you are a worker and you wants to participate in the board. Both.

A coop is not the answer of your lack of employment. It is the answer to deal equally with a capitalist model, inside the capitalism.., something like that.

Anyway, I love coops, the trustworthy level you needs, the equal vote for decisions you have, it is your company, you will take care of that. But everyone must to be in the same boat.

No, if you has been fired look for another job. A coop needs more from you than that.

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#55

Post by barry-cotter »

Lutger wrote: post #14
Jensson wrote: post #6

Nowhere did he mention salary levels. The main reason we work is to make money, if worker cooperatives makes you less money then that would be the biggest reason to not join one. I really doubt there are many cooperatives paying more than FAANG, so why not just join one of those instead?

Regardless of the commercial success of coops, your premise that the main reason for work is money does not hold up to scrutiny. If merely adequately compensated, money turns out to be really low on the list of things that actually motivates people.

If this is true why do well paying companies have their pick of employees and less well paying ones have to take their left overs? I exaggerate for effect but most companies don’t have anything like an attractive mission so they need to compete on pay, somewhat on benefits, but overwhelmingly on pay.

Google and Goldman have no trouble hiring.

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#56

Post by sofixa »

yoz-y wrote: post #49
TylerE wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The signal I’ve started looking for is an above the fold “minutes to read” stat. Sites, like Medium, that have it are practically all worth ignoring because it’s either astroturfing or just navel gazing.

Many static site generators add that stat. I find it useful.

Absolutely agreed, there's a huge difference between a 5 minute article you can quickly read whenever you stumble upon it, and a 30 minute post (like acoup.blog's excellent articles) that you might have to save to read later.

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#57

Post by sofixa »

sokoloff wrote: post #51
Shoue wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an odd critique considering coops exist to solve the friction between unions and businesses by building the democratic control into the business itself, avoiding the need for a union. Especially when you consider all the union busting tactics used by leadership at traditional businesses – how are you even supposed to form a union when they won't let you? Coops come at that from a different angle: you get democ…

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/what-we-do/conduct-elections If you have broad support from the employee base, “they” can’t block a union certification election. If you’re having trouble forming a union, you’re probably struggling at the “get employees to want your union” step in the process.

You should let Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart and similar know this. Their union busting tactics are widely documented (including shutting down locations starting to form a union).

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#58

Post by sokoloff »

sofixa wrote: post #57
sokoloff wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/what-we-do/conduct-elections If you have broad support from the employee base, “they” can’t block a union certification election. If you’re having trouble forming a union, you’re probably struggling at the “get employees to want your union” step in the process.

You should let Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart and similar know this. Their union busting tactics are widely documented (including shutting down locations starting to form a union).

They do know this. Many of their tactics are specifically directed at “make the employees not want the union”. Some of those tactics are under-handed, even despicable, but it’s safe to say that they know this and act in accordance.

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#59

Post by joxel »

sokoloff wrote: post #51
Shoue wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an odd critique considering coops exist to solve the friction between unions and businesses by building the democratic control into the business itself, avoiding the need for a union. Especially when you consider all the union busting tactics used by leadership at traditional businesses – how are you even supposed to form a union when they won't let you? Coops come at that from a different angle: you get democ…

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/what-we-do/conduct-elections If you have broad support from the employee base, “they” can’t block a union certification election. If you’re having trouble forming a union, you’re probably struggling at the “get employees to want your union” step in the process.

So I’m guessing your head has been in the sand for the last decade while Starbucks and Amazon shut down places that attempt to unionize?

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#60

Post by vernon99 »

fimdomeio wrote: post #27

I'm currently part of the administration of a co-op. It's in Portugal and it's a Multisectorial co-op, meaning instead of being focused on one type of activity we do anything as long as we have a member with that skillset. We are an agregation of freelancers and small businesses that go from small scale farming, to web development or architecture. The coop serves as a way to have a lot of the nice things of a bigger…

I’m also very interested to learn more and also super curious to brainstorm about your governance protocols since we are building a community platform and I wish we support these cases better. If you have 30 minutes sometime, can you drop me an email to mikhail at peerboard dot com?
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