Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#661

Post by icebraining » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 8:59 AM UTC

asark wrote: post #196

chrisseaton wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you do when all the best-paying companies in your industry lobby for things you don't like, leaving you few, poor, options for employment? If we must solve this problem for unions, it's surely at least as important to solve it for companies. But the thousands of companies I could work for have healthy competition and diversity of approach to issues. An industry-wide union has no competition and no diversity…

Kickstarter's in the US, no? Did you check out that WP link? I don't mean this as a "did you even read the article" jab, but you mention Labour, but this is about the US and the laws in the US mandate that those working under union labor agreements may be required to pay dues, yes, but may also be allowed to (effectively) specify that their funds may not go toward (most forms of) political spending, but only bargaini…

Money is fungible; every dollar they get from you for bargaining and services, is a dollar they don't have to spend from other members, and can allocate to political lobbying.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

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Post by TheMagicHorsey » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 9:16 AM UTC

Given my experience with unions, I’ll quit when the union forms at my employer.

Unions increase the importance of political skills over performance. If you do work but are bad at politics you’ll do worse in a union shop. Plus the nepotism and collusion between management individuals and union leadership to the detriment of shareholders, customers, and young workers is disgusting.

The only people who benefit are old underperformers in management and union leadership. They form coalitions of mutual support and screw the rest of us.

Screw unions. They are for useless people that don’t trust their own abilities.

They are only useful if the oligarchs block market competition for labor. But we aren’t there yet ... and we can be vigilant by supporting action taken against instances of collusion. Unions are no cure. They are like caking dung on the wound.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

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Post by cpursley » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 9:38 AM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #392

cpursley wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So go work for another company. My company treats me like an adult and pays me well to boot. There's way more to tech than the valley sweat shops...

I wouldn't say they treat you like an adult if they reject unions. They pay you well and treat you with politeness because they understand the value they can extract from you. That is much different than a unionized environment where you as an employee have a much more real kind of safety that goes beyond the good will of people in management.

> They pay you well and treat you with politeness because they understand the value they can extract from you.

You just made my point for me. That's a great arrangement; how it's supposed to function. How exactly is this "extraction" if under voluntary arrangement without coercion?

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

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Post by leereeves » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 9:47 AM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #516

Trufa wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two wrongs don't make fair.

If you think that trying to make more money for less work, or to get more service for less cost, is wrong, then you think capitalism is wrong.

That's fine, but doing so while forbidding hiring anyone to replace you is wrong. The whole point of unions is to obtain and abuse a monopoly on the supply of labor.

That's obviously bad for employers, but it's also bad for other employees who aren't in the union, and for anyone who wants success to be based on talent and hard work instead of politics.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

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Post by sokoloff » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 11:10 AM UTC

dagw wrote: post #657

sokoloff wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overall success and value they are able to create jointly with their colleagues and take home a portion of for themselves and their family. I also find that to be an interesting, motivating, fun, and financially rewarding game to play. I support your right to use other metrics as you prefer to make your choices, of course.

take home a portion of for themselves and their family I'm sure there are companies where the portion of value I get to take home is directly related to the value I and my colleagues created, but I've never worked at such a company. Perhaps that is the sort of thing unions could help with? edit: That being said, I've worked at companies where the primary 'enemy' was either "the bosses at HQ" or rival departments and…

In such a tech company, I’d recommend employees leave rather than unionize. Simpler, faster, more effective, more thorough fix.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

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Post by dismalpedigree » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 11:39 AM UTC

omegaworks wrote: post #591

dismalpedigree wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you could enlighten us all as to what the benefits are to either management and/or employees rather than just making vague comments that have little to no meaning.

I could, but not for free. Google it. It is politics 101.

Nice way to shirk your responsibility to back up your statements.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

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Post by blueboo » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 12:10 PM UTC

yibg wrote: post #559

I'm not against unions in general or in principle, but some implementations are not great. I suspect like some folks here, my personal (negative) interactions with unions have turned me off of unions in general. I worked at an unionized shop when I first graduated and while I recognize some of the positives the union brought, there were also many downsides. Some examples: - Nepotism. We had an open position we couldn…

You don’t need unions to se nepotism, complacency and arbitrary rules ubiquitous in a corporate environment.

You do need a union if you want to have a voice in those issues though

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

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Post by hannasanarion » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 12:17 PM UTC

solidasparagus wrote: post #646

hannasanarion wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying that workers are better off when they are also owners? Interesting idea.

Every software company I've heard of in the US offers equity...

Maybe if you only pay attention to tiny startups. It's extremely rare to get equity at an established business.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

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Post by jononor » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 12:28 PM UTC

SimonPStevens wrote: post #487

criddell wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does there have to be standard working terms? In the US professional baseball, hockey, and football have player unions and things like salary are negotiated per person.

They aren't standard working terms because of the unions. They are standard working terms because all teachers (who work in state schools at least) are employed by the local education authorities, who in turn set their working terms and salaries based on the government's department for education. So for teachers there is no individual salary negotiation, it's all decided centrally by the government and you either tak…

Yep very similar. There is built in some automatic compensation for years of service, and the payscale is inflation adjusted. For a given position, there is a small range of possible salaries. So it is in principle possible to have a bit of independently negotiated salary. In practice almost everyone falls very close to each-other.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

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Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 1:05 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #463

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's palpably false. She was the single most qualified candidate for President, from a policy viewpoint, the nation has ever had. It was dismissive nonsense like that comment, that was her biggest obstacle.

> She was the single most qualified candidate for President, from a policy viewpoint, the nation has ever had. She wasn't even close. She had a fair amount of NGO issue advocacy experience (mostly in the human services domain), less than two full terms in the Senate, and a brief (and arguably none too impressive) stint as the weakest-incoming-foreign-policy-resume Secretary of State we’d had in a long time (but Rex T…

Yale Law studying Policy, board of the Yale Review, Faculty of a School of Law, active in family advocacy her entire life. Its disingenuous to say 'fair amount' for a lifetime of service. Chair of numerous Education committees. So active in White House public policy decisions that they were famously described as 'Billary'.

She is so obviously experienced, vetted, responsible and educated as to make that 'not even close' assertion ridiculous.