Kickstarter employees vote to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#571

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

Seenso wrote: post #516

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…

> 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? Not necessarily. I'd imagine that a union could negotiate its pay-scales any way it likes, which could take into acc…

Why should a person take a pay cut to help someone else who is less skilled or chose different priorities above their jobs? I expect a person who is willing to devote 60 hours a week to get paid more than me when I go home after 8 hours.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#572

Post by leto_ii » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

Seenso wrote: post #546

leto_ii wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just in terms of salary isn’t an union somewhat contradictory to the engineering ethos of meritocracy? I've seen that other commenters have already pointed out that the two are not incompatible. However, with the risk of getting some downvotes, I would like to challenge the primacy of meritocracy itself. I don't mean to say that people shouldn't do a good job at work or that they shouldn't try to continuously impro…

> I don't mean to say that people shouldn't do a good job at work or that they shouldn't try to continuously improve. But I think that an environment and a mentality of continuous competition between individuals is not necessarily beneficial. For one it can cause tensions, frustration, anger, alienation at an individual level, but I think in the long run it can actually harm the company itself. IIRC, the authors of P…

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#573

Post by SolaceQuantum » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

Bedon292 wrote: post #551

Seenso wrote: post #516

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? Not necessarily. I'd imagine that a union could negotiate its pay-scales any way it likes, which could take into acc…

While I agree if the 10x is making 120 and it moves to 150 that is good for everyone. But what if there is a 10x who actually makes 200. Would you ask them to take a pay cut so everyone is on that same 150? I think people will have a hard time with that. I feel people will always want more money for performing better, or get incentivised to perform at the exact right level of that compensation and not more. I am curi…

Actor’s guilds don’t specify a ceiling to wages, only floors. We could do the same here.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#574

Post by azinman2 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 8:15 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #547

azinman2 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because it resonates as a real problem despite the upsides.

Or perhaps it reinforces preconceived notions?

It matches my own experience and anecdotes that others have told me from their experiences. I don’t think it’ll be hard to find similar stories out there...

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#575

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 8:15 PM UTC

hello_moto wrote: post #523

kerkeslager wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think businesses are able to pay their workers, just not absurd amount of money that FAANG pays their respective workers. We're talking about 85k vs 200k for junior engineers here and probably 150k vs 500k for senior engineers. Are you suggesting that small businesses should just die? > 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 t…

Perhaps unionization can come hand-in-hand with breaking up tech monopolies to encourage competitive behavior to allow smaller startups to survive.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#576

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 8:15 PM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #410

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…

The number 1 reason to form a union in the tech world is so a company can't pull a Disney. Replace all your full time workers with imported 'contractors' and force you to train them. Getting rid of the 'contractor' loop hole in tech will be better for everyone.

You really aren’t aware of all the union factories that picked up and moved their entire operations to another country to avoid unions?

As far as the contract “loophole”. Every time I’ve worked as a contractor, my net income including taking into account the loss of benefits was hire than I made as an FTE.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#577

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 8:16 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #574

Apocryphon wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps it reinforces preconceived notions?

It matches my own experience and anecdotes that others have told me from their experiences. I don’t think it’ll be hard to find similar stories out there...

It's good to have those stories, because then it will provide case studies for future unions to learn from and to avoid.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#578

Post by slg » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 8:16 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #451

mdonahoe wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I disagree. Professional sports leagues are both monopolies and monopsonies (meaning they’re the only ones hiring those specialized athletes). So the market dynamics are very different from that of tech. If you’re a NFL linebacker, you don’t really have an option to switch leagues if you’re unhappy with how it’s run. If you’re a software engineer, you can switch companies very easily.

If this was the only reason to have a union, you would only expect unions to exist in sports leagues that have a monopoly. Yet that isn't what we see in practice. The WNBA and the MLS both have unions. The NBA G League is moving to form a union as we speak. These are all leagues that face stiff competition from abroad and it is common for American athletes to go play in those foreign leagues. However that competition between employers isn't enough to give the athletes the negotiating power that they can command with a union.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#579

Post by vitalus » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 8:16 PM UTC

Is it normal for unionization votes to have this kind of opposition? 56.6% doesn't seem like an overwhelming majority, so I'm curious to see how it plays out for all of the employees there.

It would be interesting as well to know how/if the vote was drastically different based on role - it sounds like this was a company-wide vote, which would necessarily include many more roles than just software engineers.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#580

Post by quotemstr » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 8:17 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 because the actors' guild has a clause in the union constitution requiring a big supermajority (something like 2/3 of the vote) to impose a pay cap or to remove the supermajority vote requirement. The people who created the SAG understood very well that unions oppose meritocracy and specially crafted the SAG to resist this effect. I have no idea whether Kickstarter's organizers did the same, but I expect that they did not.