Kickstarter employees vote to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#711

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #709

ChuckMcM wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not as if most companies- or at least most startups- are particularly good about preventing individuals or individual teams from becoming vital cogs, leading to tribal knowledge. Unions won't lead to less documentation that the existing poor organizational cultures already foster.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#712

Post by bakuninsbart » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:51 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…

It is good to incentivise stellar performances with higher pay, but for me personally, it isn't the reason I aspire to be good. I think I would do exactly the same thing in a "Star Trek-like" economy where everyone basically has the same standard of living. (Probably because I was born wealthy and am not pressured by fear of subsistence)

One thing people would probably stop doing is chasing wealth and career to the detriment of their private life, and that might be a net negative to corporate spreadsheets and economic growth, but probably a net-positive for society.

I say to both my leftist and rightist friends to please spend some time analyzing Scandinavian societies. They are much more advanced than us on a lot of social issues, and a lot of their successes are directly applicable to our societies, too.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#713

Post by dang » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

wanderingjew wrote: post #198

nosefrog wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t you contribute to the conversation by talking about your own experience with unions?

While not the grandparent post, I can add some of my own experiences with unions: Once, when workers in Chicago supported a general strike in support of an eight-hour workday, police shot and killed a number of workers. [1]. Someone threw dynamite into a crowd. A lot of people died, but we got that eight hour workday. Another time, workers protested for higher wages, but the company owners hired private security and…

Please don't take HN threads further into generic ideological flamewar. That direction is predictable, nasty, and tedious, and therefore badly off topic here.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#714

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #681

TylerE wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are buying more than the snacks. They are buying you time, since you never need to make office grocery runs to stock your desk. Might not be a huge deal, but elimination of chores really is a perk.

Okay, pay me the money you were going to spend on snacks and the money you were going to pay the person who you pay to fetch the snacks, and I'll go fetch my own snacks or order them off the internet to my desk. It's arguable whether it's actually a perk for me to spend 8 hours in a row at my desk, but even if we accept that claim at face value, it's still not a significant factor in any decisions I make. Perks are t…

> Okay, pay me the money you were going to spend on snacks and the money you were going to pay the person who you pay to fetch the snacks, and I'll go fetch my own snacks or order them off the internet to my desk.

Your office manager (or whoever) orders snacks from a contractor in bulk once a month (they don't make N GrubHub/etc individual orders every day). If they give you your fraction of that back, it wouldn't cover your GrubHub/etc order. Perks work because of these economies of scale.

You can rail against the value of these perks, but "give me the cash and let me decide for myself" doesn't work.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#715

Post by dang » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

rukittenme wrote: post #288

wanderingjew wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not the grandparent post, I can add some of my own experiences with unions: Once, when workers in Chicago supported a general strike in support of an eight-hour workday, police shot and killed a number of workers. [1]. Someone threw dynamite into a crowd. A lot of people died, but we got that eight hour workday. Another time, workers protested for higher wages, but the company owners hired private security and…

I mean this as politely as it can be meant. And, I'm not contributing this point to make a jab at you or your political ideology. I think you need to seek professional medical help. You're contributing "personal experiences" from 150 years ago. You're hand-waving domestic terrorism because it achieved a political end you agree with. You're accusing people of being "traitors" (a capital offense) for acknowledging the…

Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar, and certainly please don't cross into personal attack.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#716

Post by octodog » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #681

TylerE wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are buying more than the snacks. They are buying you time, since you never need to make office grocery runs to stock your desk. Might not be a huge deal, but elimination of chores really is a perk.

Okay, pay me the money you were going to spend on snacks and the money you were going to pay the person who you pay to fetch the snacks, and I'll go fetch my own snacks or order them off the internet to my desk. It's arguable whether it's actually a perk for me to spend 8 hours in a row at my desk, but even if we accept that claim at face value, it's still not a significant factor in any decisions I make. Perks are t…

Who are you to decide if that's worth it or not? Obviously if someone has decided to take that pay cut and switch companies it was worthwhile for them.

You might not care much for those perks yourself but it's self-evident that some people do.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#717

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:58 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…

Food and bus service are also simply ways to control the amount of time an employee spends on premises.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#718

Post by piva00 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #452

Barrin92 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It always made 100x more sense to me on some factory floor in the early 20th century than it does in a tech startup like environment in 2020. Why does that make more sense? The point of unionization is collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is effective whether you have 30 rockstar ninja developers or blue collar workers on a factory floor. In either case the collective action helps amplifying the workforce's…

Are you exactly equal to the worker next to you? If so collective bargaining makes sense because a good deal for everybody is the best deal you can get. If not, then collective bargaining is keeping some great people down. The fact that you said rockstar developer says you believe that there are some non-rockstar developers who are presumably worth less. Note that athletic unions do not bargain for wages in general (…

Why do you equate collective bargaining with collective negotiation of wages?

It is the second comment [0] on this thread that I reply conflating those aspects into one as if that is how every union and collective bargaining work, why?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22360416

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#719

Post by mrguyorama » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #709

ChuckMcM wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's nobody purposely making that kind of effort right now and it STILL takes something like a month for a new body to get up to speed.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#720

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #711

throwaway894345 wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not as if most companies- or at least most startups- are particularly good about preventing individuals or individual teams from becoming vital cogs, leading to tribal knowledge. Unions won't lead to less documentation that the existing poor organizational cultures already foster.

My question was about whether unionization constitutes an increased incentive (and I would think that it would for the same reasons that unionization gives a collection of individuals more power than they would have as individuals); I don't think that depends on whether or not existing institutions are good or bad at preventing vital cogs, etc.

I might be wrong, but I don't think it's because of the efficacy of existing institutions.