631–640 of 1001 posts
Does anyone have insight into what's motivating the Kickstarter employees here?
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"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.
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.
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"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.
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I expect you're being downvoted because your statement is so obviously wrong. Democracies have consistently made horrifying decisions. Take a read through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
As have monarchies and dictatorships. So where does that leave us? The conclusions that all forms of government make horrifying decisions?
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Yes it's accurate, though the "Always Punch Nazis" controversy was just the tip of the iceberg. Employees were being treated like enemies by some in upper management. Edit: I've been rate limited by HN mods (thanks!), so not replying on this account anymore. All the best!
The article is ambiguous, but I guess those organising the union were taking the side of leaving the project up? Or is the union demanding total freedom of speech in the terms of service? I'm guessing not. Doesn't that bother you, at least a little bit? How can whether or not to leave up "always punch nazis" be the union's signature issue? Unions are meant to fight for the common man against the elites. alwayspunchna…
The Nazis won a plurality of the popular vote, so it’s not exactly a great distinguishing factor for Trump.
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So do all tech companies have legal monopoly where they share revenues and where you have to enter a draft to get a job? Sports leagues have nothing to do with how most companies operate.
Of course there's no monopoly. But tech companies are pretty happy to collude, both at an executive level (we've had court cases about this) and at the memetic "this is what we think about management" one, in order to work against workers' interests. We, too, are allowed to work together to combat this. Wage suppression, limiting our ability to grow and expand into different areas, and controlling the ability to exer…
If companies are colluding, that’s the issue where the government needs to intervene.
Is Kickstarter in a right-to-work state? Because if not, 46 people are forcing 37 to support a union that they might not agree with, which is distasteful in the extreme.
You led me to find a map of US anti-union "right-to-work" states on wikipedia[1]. I previously figured pretty much all of the US is under RTW legislation, but it seems like, outside of the folks in Texas, almost the entire tech industry is in non-RTW states. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law#U.S._states_...
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> 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.
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.
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> 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…
Sports is about the farthest thing from a meritocracy you can get. Only 25 NBA players in the history of the league have been below 5 foot 9 (175cm) [1] Professional athletes are genetic freaks first and foremost - look at the dropoff from college football players to professional players. It's not talent that determines who makes it, it's genetic ability. The absolute worst NFL team in history would decimate the best…