Kickstarter employees vote to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#701

Post by rpiguy » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

lasky wrote: post #589

rpiguy wrote: post #378

The most fascinating thing to me about tech worker unionization is that it is less about working conditions and more about input on moral decisions made by company management. At Kickstarter the moral divide started with the Punch a Nazi incident. You see this at other technology companies as well, as employees agonize over free speech, what to censor, whether or not to work for China, whether or not to deploy survei…

agree, this is by far the most interesting part of all this. it’s not about “my working conditions” but about whether or not my employer “agrees with my views.” I think this is partly because people understand the power and influence their organizations have in the world. When many migrant restaurant workers are working 80 hour weeks or don’t keep their tips, it makes it easier to see the radical privilege of tech wo…

I think it is also generational. We now have in the workplace a few generations of workers who grew up being told their opinions mattered and that speaking up is a virtue. I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing.

Us old-timers were taught the opposite, your opinions don't matter much, no one will listen to you until you prove yourself, etc.

So I think the generational shift has something to do with it.

I also think labor organizers are exuberant because they finally have a way to build a wedge between highly-paid employees who were formerly resistant to unionizing and their management.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#702

Post by themagician » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #3

I really don't understand this. A career in software is one of the most pampered and lucrative ones I can think of. Due to the shortage of software engineers, we can go anywhere and get a job instantly. The only downside I can think of is ageism, but then again, I have colleagues in their 50s and 60s where I work. But I suppose this isn't universal. (I'm in Atlanta and we have a lot of older workers. Age doesn't seem…

“A career in software is one of the most pampered and lucrative ones I can think of.”

Yeah, when you are in the top 5%. I’m not sure you realize just how shit most tech jobs are. Not everyone gets $300k a year in stock. Most people get nothing.

You don’t want it because you are in the top decile. That’s the same reason that everyone who is in the top decile of anything doesn’t want change. This is for the 90%, not for you. You shouldn’t empathize. You should oppose this because it will ultimately hurt you.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#703

Post by kerkeslager » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

edmundsauto wrote: post #684

kerkeslager wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, frankly, fsk free snacks. Pay me the money you were going to spend on snacks, and I'll choose whether to spend it on snacks or not. And since the money spent on free snacks was probably about $20/week, it won't be a significant consideration in any of my decisions. Bus service might be more significant in some places, but every place I've ever lived had that subsidized by the government, and long commutes are a…

Tax free when a company buys them. I prefer the free snacks even at an even money exchange, but realistically, you'd see about $12/week on a $20/week rerouting.

If $8/week is something that affects your decisions, you might benefit from unionizing for higher pay. ;)

If you want to play the tax game, let's talk about reimbursing large purchases like a vehicle, personal laptop that you aren't monitoring, education costs, or housing. There isn't a situation where I'm going to care about snacks.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#704

Post by notyourday » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #687

notyourday wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet, they get healthcare through the union. If they meet eligibility requirements. Most don't. > Minimum rates for when they do find work. Those rates are terrible. One cannot support oneself on it. SAG day rate is ~$335. SAG week rate is ~$1166. That's 2020. > Residuals to get them through lean years. You are thinking of people who "made it" -- managed to land a long term gig on one of syndicated TV shows. Tho…

> If they meet eligibility requirements. Most don't. You have to earn $15k/year to qualify for the lowest tier health plan. At the minimum rate you quoted, that's about 12 weeks of work. That doesn't seem unreasonable - hard to call yourself a professional actor yet if you can't book 12 weeks of work. Dues are only $220/year, so it's not like you're giving a ton of money to the union while you wait for a break. > Sag…

> You have to earn $15k/year to qualify for the lowest tier health plan. At the minimum rate you quoted, that's about 12 weeks of work.

That's work on a set. 12 weeks/year on a set is a huge number. To get to that point, one probably spent 2x the time on non-paid activities such as pounding pavement going on castings and auditions.

> That's still better money than waiting tables. About 2x California minimum wage.

Exactly! So the great achievement of the union is non-full time at 2x minimum wage with benefits tied to ~ 3 months of days on set.

That would be a massive downgrade for tech workers who are full time, at 4x - 10x the minimum wage. Options and RSUs would definitely go bye-bye.

> Even guest stars that speak one or 2 lines in a single episode of a long-running show will get something. I don't know the sums involved - maybe it's grocery money, for someone with that small of a part.

The best thing to be is an extra who said something on camera, because that automatically upgrades one to a principal by burning an exmeption.

Yes, everyone gets paid residuals but it is all based on the total units and total pay and who gets more units.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#705

Post by chasd00 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

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…

if you want to unionize go ahead, i'm not though. I believe a lot of tech works would prefer not to be union and have to deal with all the BS plus dues. I can negotiate on my own pretty well so knock yourself out but i won't be signing up.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#706

Post by yumraj » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

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…

> 1. Why do tech workers need a union?

1. Fight ageism (every 20 year old today will grow up someday)

2. Fight open office layout (my opinion, may not be shared by everyone)

3. Fight for equal pay, discriminations of various sorts

4. Fight for reasonable share in success and against the massive differential between CxO and others' pay

5. Resist outsourcing where it makes sense

....... the list goes on ....

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#707

Post by pnw_hazor » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

save_ferris wrote: post #492

carapace wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Why do tech workers need a union? I don't know if a union is the answer, but tech workers aren't immune to management hi-jinks: "Apple and Google's wage-fixing cartel involved dozens more companies, over one million employees" https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage...

It’s not just wage-fixing, tech companies wield an absurd amount of power in other aspects of people’s lives. I was once let go due for “performance” reasons that involved major company politics behind the scenes. I’d just gotten my annual review from my boss emailed to my work email about a week before my termination, which showed stellar performance across the board. When I looked into filing for unemployment, I di…

For future reference, being fired because of performance or incompetency is unlikely to be a valid "for cause" firing that disqualifies one from unemployment benefits. If a person is fired because the employer claims they suck at the job (whether its true or not), they still get unemployment.

Your mileage may vary depending on local laws or recent changes to employment law.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#708

Post by j4pe » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #81

nimbius wrote: post #21

Speaking as an IAM union member, congratulations! now comes the hard part. You're probably (still) going to hear a lot of FUD from your employer but dont worry, things really do only get better from here. Once you get a union youll get more quarterly insight into your companies profits, losses, and a MUCH better picture of what the company intends to do in the next six to twelve months. Youll also get a direct say in…

I just formed a company back in December. Super easy to set up an LLC, C or S Corp. But I wanted it to be a worker co-op like Mondragon. And there's no real guidance or help. Democracy is cool, until we look at companies. Then it's dictatorships as the norm. And trying to do it right from the ground up is high impossible. As a obligatory comment: are there any other in the HN-sphere that focuses on worker cooperative…

Nice! I also ran a company as a worker coop - but I structured it as an LLC, just because it was far easier. Coop practices like revenue sharing were defined through company bylaws, not its legal ownership structure.

Lots of people have done coops in tech. One decent list: https://github.com/hng/tech-coops

Yanis Varoufakis, before he was the finance minister of Greece(!), worked at Valve and wrote about the economic theory of why corporations are structured as centrally controlled fiefdoms instead of democracies, and why Valve was apparently more democratic (http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/why-valve-or-what-d...). Great read.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#709

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #584

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…

Tech workers could have effectively used the leverage associated with unionization since at least 1984 during the semiconductor recession. Considering that the revenue per employee number is at an all time high, and the amount of money the company spends on the employee's working environment[1] is at record lows pretty much explains why this is going to be effective now when it wasn't before. There is also the issue…

Politics aside, I wonder if a tech union would have a strong incentive to make their individual workers irreplaceable--encourage them to hoard knowledge or make the code deliberately difficult for others to understand--such that the company would have a lot more to lose from a strike. As an outsider, most unions that I'm familiar with have employees that are more or less replaceable (one certified welder can fill in for another in a relatively short amount of time), but I don't think this is (as) true for tech. Thoughts?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#710

Post by thatcat » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #596

eropple wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You can train to improve vertical jump, there are specific work outs developed for NBA players for this purpose. https://www.amazon.com/Vertical-Jump-Development-Bible/dp/14...