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Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

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Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#771

Post by jariel »

arrosenberg wrote: post #455
proc0 wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bargaining rights don't come for free. At the end of the day, unless you are the owner of the company or union leaders, you are basically serving two masters.

That's a pretty pessimistic way to look at it. Without a union or being a high-skilled worker, you are 100% serving your corporate overlord. In well-run unions the leadership serves the membership, not the other way around. With a good union you are serving yourself in a far more significant way than without the union.

"pessimistic way to look at it. Without a union or being a high-skilled worker, you are 100% serving your corporate overlord."

And 'serving a corporate overlord' is not 'pessimistic'?

You have skills, you work with others to make something hopefully productive, you get paid, and that's the deal. The company usually takes on most of the risk and the bigger chunk of the upside. That's the deal, it works well in most cases.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#772

Post by sjg007 »

pro-duct wrote: post #686
sjg007 wrote: post #669

Hospital doctors are unionized. Professors are unionized. Plumbers are unionized Dirt movers are unionized Police are unionized Figherfighters are unionized Public employees are unionized Teachers are unionized Actors are unionized the NBA is unionized the NFL is unionized the MLB is unionized the NHL is unionized And yet, software engineers should not be ?

It being a common practice isn't relevant to whether it is best for this industry and its workers. I'm not saying I disagree, but your reasoning just doesn't support your argument

What makes software engineering different?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#773

Post by mempko »

sonofhans wrote: post #175
mempko wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is also a system that produces BETTER decisions. Sure tyranny can make decisions "efficiently" but that's not that great when those decisions are terrible. Democracy: Fewer macro, more micro, better decisions Command-Control: More macro, fewer micro, terrible decisions. EDIT: Another way to think of democracy is "distributed decision making" vs command-control which is "centralized decision making". When I…

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

It's not obviously wrong. What has Democracy to do with "majority based decision making". Another way to think of democracy is "distributed decision making".

So why would "distributed decision making" be obviously worse than "command and control" like the way a corporation or tyrannical government is run?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#774

Post by zpallin »

skybrian wrote: post #591
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…

Collective bargaining is one way to do better for yourself but the other is to change jobs and negotiate for better pay and conditions as part of the hiring process. This has other advantages too, like meeting new people and learning new things.

However, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#775

Post by jariel »

arrosenberg wrote: post #766
luckylion wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In well-run unions the leadership serves the membership, not the other way around. Isn't that a bit much like "in a well-run republic, the government serves the people" etc? That's certainly true in theory ... I have no experience with US unions, but I am, thanks to a previous job, very well acquainted with most of the major unions in Germany on multiple levels. The further up you go, the more corruption you will f…

> Isn't that a bit much like "in a well-run republic, the government serves the people" etc? That's certainly true in theory... Surely one has to prefer theoretical upside over the certainty of servitude. > I have no experience with US unions, but I am, thanks to a previous job, very well acquainted with most of the major unions in Germany on multiple levels. The further up you go, the more corruption you will find.…

"certainty of servitude" -> "I didn't think my statement was particularly ideological"

Have the self-awareness to concede that describing 'a job' particularly in high tech which can pay quite well and has great conditions, is tantamount to servitude is effectively ideological.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#776

Post by UncleMeat »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #380
zipwitch wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was that "union rules" or "the way the company had agreed to comply with their agreement with the union"? Because 'work to rule' can be a double-edged sword, and in my experience companies just love to blame their own chosen behavior on the union. "We have to fire you if you're late five times this quarter, because the union" really means "after we frequently and arbitrarily abused employees under the excuse of 'atte…

Think about where the company's interest lies. Without the union, of course they would want their employee to just plug the thing in. They wouldn't agree to such a silly stricture if it wasn't forced upon them by the union.

And without a union, employees might tell people who report sexual harassment to get bent.

Yes, unions can make things less efficient. Yes, unions can cause unnecessarily stupid systems that harm people. But so do employers! I'd rather have one I can at least vote in.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#777

Post by webXL »

thu2111 wrote: post #509
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also possible that some organizations have a high concentration of folks who have a particular viewpoint on unions, regardless of whether they're being treated poorly or not. For example, Vox's newsroom unionized, even though I would suppose that they are likely treated better than most journalists -- at least to the extent the business' economics allow. I'm not saying this is necessarily the case with Kickstart…

If it helps, I'll say it for you. From the article: But in 2018, a heated disagreement broke out between employees and management about whether to leave a project called “Always Punch Nazis” on the platform, according to reporting in Slate. When Breitbart said the project violated Kickstarter’s terms of service by inciting violence, management initially planned to remove the project, but then reversed its decision af…

Took a while to find it all the way down in that image of the inside cover, but I can't see how that isn't promoting violence against anyone considered to be alt-right or far-right. Do they have to accept "Always Punch Antifa" projects now?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#778

Post by bobbytran »

gamblor956 wrote: post #767
bobbytran wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very difficult to actually grow a company in a country like Sweden because of the regulations and taxes you are required to pay after a certain amount of employees.

I would rather pay employees a living wage as part of a sustainable business than deal with the hypergrowth VC bullshit that destroys entire market segments with nothing to show for it except ruined lives after the startups finally implode.

There will be no sustainable business. Regulations and taxes strangle your business before it gets to that point.

If you look at the business landscape of Sweden, it mostly consists of large multinational corporations with bases outside of Sweden (IKEA is a good example of this) and government jobs.

It doesn't leave much room for individuals wanting to start a business and actually having an chance at success.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#779

Post by gamblor956 »

miscPerson wrote: post #610
ken wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexist/racist people don’t show up to union meetings and volunteer for union committees to push sexist/racist policies. It’s not like national politics where it’s a prestigious and high paying job, and corporations are throwing a ton of money behind candidates. Also, unions are usually not employer-specific. No matter how many jerks you have at one company, they can’t overpower all the voting members at all the other…

Respectfully, plenty of misandrists and anti-White racists do show up to those meetings and join panels to push their discriminatory agenda. Why do you think we talk about the lack of women in STEM, but not the lack of men in HR, education, social work, psychology, etc? Because bigots set the agenda. Having sports programs for one sex has been ruled illegal under Title IX — but how many universities have special tuto…

There are plenty of men in HR, education, and social work.

Men simply don't go into those fields as much as women do because they pay less than comparable positions in other fields.

Case in point: the number of men in nursing has been increasing every year without having any gender-based outreach efforts, because nurses make good money, get longer weekends, and you don't need 10 years of degrees to become a nurse.

Similarly, the % of men employed as educators increases with salary. Or in other words, very few male teachers at the K-3 levels, more at the middle-school level, and the largest % of male teachers at the high-school level.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#780

Post by wcfields »

xur17 wrote: post #601
wcfields wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> About the time I had one PC opened up and was installing the NIC, one of the local IT guys dropped by and told me "You can't do that." 'Why not?', I asked. "That's not your job.", he replies. I say this as a non-union IT Tech who works at convention centers and trade-shows regularly and really wishes at times I could just grab a hole saw to make the mouse-hole to run my cables through: It's not your job. If there w…

> Similarly anyone could pick up a broom and sweep the job floor, but without clear delineation that is ONLY the janitors job then why not make the electricians sweep the floors when they're walking back? They are not being forced to sweep the floors, sometimes people are choosing to step slightly outside of their role to do something when it is more efficient for them to do it rather than inefficiently finding and h…

I think you missed the point of adding additional responsibilities.

In my example the electricians did not make the mess, but they, however, walk around the facility a lot so why not give them a broom so they can clean up messes on their way.

Unchecked is how you lead to companies squeezing 3 jobs out of one person.

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