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Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

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Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#721

Post by zpallin »

Camas wrote: post #484
zpallin wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generally speaking for well run, ethical companies, whose management actively try to do the right thing, unions add unnecessary redundancy and bureaucracy. The only type of "well run, ethical companies" where unions are redundant are worker-owned cooperatives . Otherwise, an employer, regardless of how ethical they are, can never replicate the most critical aspect of unions: collective bargaining rights . Sure, an…

An employee can at any time choose to work somewhere else.

Indeed. They can also choose to unionize.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#722

Post by bearmcbearsly »

Herrin wrote: post #677
djrogers wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to an example of a large US union that doesn't collectively bargain wage scales?

The Screen Actors Guild, and the players unions for most professional sports (NFL, NBA, MLB, etc). They recognize that their members have different levels of talent, and allow the stars to make more, while still ensuring basic rights for every member.

And how's that working out for them? The median SAG/AFTRA member makes less than $1,000 per year from acting. And the pro sports players associations are tiny -- they exclude the much larger group of athletes who try to make a living playing sports but don't make the big leagues.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#723

Post by TeMPOraL »

carapace wrote: post #318
umvi wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democracy is cool, until we look at companies. Then it's dictatorships as the norm. Democracy is a horribly inefficient system of government. Its only redeeming quality is that it seems effective at (so far) deterring tyranny and abuse of power. However, like I said, it's horribly inefficient. Changes that are easy to make under a dictatorship can be extremely hard to make under a democracy. Not exactly a quality y…

[In]efficient at what? You've got to think carefully about your metrics when it comes to government. Look it's widely understood that, if the dictator or tyrant is good at his (or, very occasionally, her) job then things usually go well. The old women of Bhutan cried when the King decreed democracy. It's getting rid of the bad ones that's the big problem, and so: democracy. "The worst form of government except for al…

Democracy is efficient at getting shit done. As uncareful as this metric is defined.

But I would say even more importantly, democracy is very efficient at limiting internal bloodshed. It provides a well-defined, peaceful process for people to grab power. The power is limited, but you don't have to kill people to gain it, and in turn you don't risk getting killed yourself by the next upstart.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#724

Post by wmil »

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…

There's a great tweet about offices...

"Is it weird to be jealous of the corporate dystopia workspaces from 1990s movies?

Neo would be sharing that space with 4 people in an open office plan today."

https://twitter.com/sweis/status/1120433880593575936

Read the whole thread. It's disturbing how close the over the top dystopian joke offices from the film Brazil are to reality.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#725

Post by slumdev »

scarface74 wrote: post #571
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…

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.

That person devoting 60 hours a week is almost certainly committing trash that someone else will have to refactor or discard entirely at a later date.

Real 10x programmers spend most of their time levitating, anyway.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#726

Post by [deleted] »

thefreeman wrote: post #384
lexs wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NBA players association, actors guild, writers guild etc are famous examples of "rewarding high performing employees"

> NBA player association I disagree. The NBA players association looks out for the mid level role players (who make up a vast majority of the league) over the highest performing players. The top tier of NBA players are essentially "underpaid" compared to their worth due to maximum salaries. This makes room for mid level guys to make 10-15 million per year. If there was no maximum salary there would be a massive biddi…

[deleted]

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#727

Post by cowpig »

calderarrow wrote: post #235

Coming from a public accounting background, I’ve seen a variety of businesses. Somewhat obviously, I’ve seen some be successful with unions and others be successful without, which makes sense, as unions are neither inherently good nor bad. They are a tool which can change the power dynamic and incentive structure of workers and employers throughout an organization, but there is nothing inherent about having a union t…

Honestly, I really want tech workers to unionize and push for companies to install ethics committees.

Particularly at Facebook and Google -- tech workers should unionize there not because they need better work conditions but because otherwise all business decisions are in the hands of executives for whom unethical or sociopathic behaviour is often an advantage.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#728

Post by kerkeslager »

octodog wrote: post #716
kerkeslager wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People are free to make whatever irrational decisions they wish. Again, we're talking anecdotal evidence, but those people don't stay long at those companies.

I certainly won't hold it against an employer if they provide snacks.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#729

Post by TeMPOraL »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #525
acdha wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very simplistic assumption that there’s one company interest which everyone understands and supports. I’ve seen many places where it would be as simple as department A owns that function and they care about making their lives easier, not your productivity. That’s basically the norm for large company IT departments, with nary a union in sight. Remember, there’s been a well-funded campaign pushing back agains…

Expecting that companies want their employees to be able to do their jobs without being blocked by picayune rules is simple, but it's not simplistic.

Again, you could be surprised by some IT departments.

There's this perspective that the best way to keep a system working is to make it unusable, so that nobody uses it, and thus nobody breaks it, and so you don't have to keep fixing it. It's something I've seen parts of organizations navigate into without any union-related involvement.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#730

Post by mcantelon »

ksr_throwaway wrote: post #536
thu2111 wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the article's description of why the union was created accurate?

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!

>Yes it's accurate, though the "Always Punch Nazis" controversy was just the tip of the iceberg

Wow pretty crazy that a company would expect employees to consistently enforce a reasonable part of the company's T.O.S.

Many tech workers have no idea how unbelievably spoiled they are.

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