Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

871–880 of 1001 posts

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#871

Post by Apocryphon »

OJFord wrote: post #841
aidenn0 wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, it was not uncommon in the 80s and 90s for your workstation to cost significantly more than your car did. The Ultra-5 was the cheap Sun work-station at $4k base price, as by 1999 Intel based workstations were starting to put pressure on Sun from below.

I could seriously do with more RAM, but I don't need a $4k computer. In fact, since I have a MacBook but would be more than happy with a (Linux) ThinkPad, it might not even cost more. My point is, we don't need 'hardware investment' for the sake of it. If places started doing that I'd rather BYO device, and pocket the difference between what I need and what they budget for.

On the last point, Apple seems to be betting otherwise with its exorbitant prices for top spec Mac Pro configurations.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#872

Post by Apocryphon »

MPSimmons wrote: post #861
yumraj wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ....

> 2. Fight open office layout (my opinion, may not be shared by everyone) This is, I believe, the biggest strike against unions. If the unions decide you don't get open offices, then that decision binds everyone, whether they wanted an open office or not. You just have to hope that the many tradeoffs you make are worth the things you get in return.

Unions need not ban all open offices from existence, but they can at least provide a more powerful voice than angry blog posts in an industry dominated by open plans.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#873

Post by aty268 »

dang wrote: post #811
aty268 wrote: post #199

Absolutely pathetic for both sides. If you don't like your white collar tech job, go somewhere else. It's not factory work where you're paid way less to do the same thing wherever you go. You make yourselves and your company look weak in doing this. This is why the rest of the United States thinks tech is full of a bunch of entitled pricks.

Please follow the HN guidelines when posting here. Lashing out like this not only damages the commons, it discredits what you're saying, so it's neither in your interest as a community member nor as an individual. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I understand. I apologize. You may want to remove my comment on the other thread then (exactly the same), although interestingly it is upvoted there.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#874

Post by xeromal »

pathseeker wrote: post #320
Balero wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The experience I have had with UK unions is very different from this, and the other descriptions of unions in the US. I only had a few interactions with them (in a union capacity, the rep was a normal worker as well). These were things like: Getting some new equipment for the break room (kettle and mugs), pushing some new health and safety process (developed alongside the company), and then the yearly meeting, which…

>Whereas in the US there are many that have a more antagonistic relationship, which is just weird to me. It likely stems from the fact that the birth of the unions in the US was a super violent affair (grotesque murders of both union organizers and union busters). All of the old unions born around that time were founded in an environment where the company was a hostile enemy you negotiated every minute thing with.

This 100%. I'm generally against unions in tech, but the right to have a union was earned in blood here in the US. I hope it stays around at least as a remembrance to those that died for it. We all benefited in some ways.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#875

Post by yibg »

charlesu wrote: post #866
yibg wrote: post #824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that meritocracy is more a talking point than reality on the ground. I just mean, right now there is a disparity in income. Think of it as the income inequality that's common in many countries. In principle the tech world seems to agree this that setup; that some engineers should be paid significantly more than others. In my previous experience with unions in North America, incomes tends to be compressed towa…

Pay is more of a function of where you work than skill. There are mediocre engineers being paid $300K at FAANG and great engineers being paid $100K at Random Small Company. FAANG pays more because it's better able to monetize what its engineers are building.

That’s true but the engineering pay at the same company varies a lot too. Probably not 3x for the same level and role but I’ve seen difference of 2x in total compensation for the same title.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#876

Post by yspeak »

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…

No free snacks just union dues. And a new bureaucracy that will live off it. Have a problem ? See your union boss. They will take care of everything.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#877

Post by miscPerson »

charlesu wrote: post #858
miscPerson wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What is discriminatory about taking active measures to ensure that the tech monoculture does not perpetuate itself? If there are programs for women in STEM majors who need extra support, it is because women in STEM majors may have to surmount an obstacle that men do not: namely, that women are not fit for engineering. This webcomic sums up why so many organizations take active measures to support women in STEM in one…

It’s illegal discrimination to provide programs only for the majority sex — see rulings on only having sports programs for men. (Women have been the majority of college students since the 1980s.)

There’s nothing wrong with women in STEM programs, but not having matching men-in-social-sciences programs is a Title IX violation... precisely in the way only having sports for men would be.

You can have programs for no one; you can have programs for everyone; you cant have programs only for one sex.

That’s literally the point of civil rights laws.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#878

Post by p1necone »

mprovost wrote: post #743
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…

And the amount spent on actual hardware must be at an all time low. The first lab I interned at in high school in the early 90s, every programmer had both a Symbolics workstation and a NeXTcube on their desk. (In a private office, of course). That represented a pretty significant investment. At my first "real" job, I got a Sun Ultra 5 workstation. These days you get the same Macbook Pro that everyone else can pick up…

Yeah but that's because that Sun Workstation probably provided significant value over regular consumer PCs at the time. Do you actually need more than a MacBook Pro and a couple extra monitors to do your job comfortably? I doubt it.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#879

Post by p1necone »

Apocryphon wrote: post #871
OJFord wrote: post #841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could seriously do with more RAM, but I don't need a $4k computer. In fact, since I have a MacBook but would be more than happy with a (Linux) ThinkPad, it might not even cost more. My point is, we don't need 'hardware investment' for the sake of it. If places started doing that I'd rather BYO device, and pocket the difference between what I need and what they budget for.

On the last point, Apple seems to be betting otherwise with its exorbitant prices for top spec Mac Pro configurations.

From what I understand their market is basically companies that have already bought into a Mac based workflow and for whom the switching costs (retraining on new software, rebuilding tools etc) would be so high that Apple can practically charge whatever they want. This doesn't seem like a good long term strategy though.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#880

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

fzeroracer wrote: post #295
zip1234 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a uncle that was a bricklayer and moved somewhere that bricklayers were in demand so that he could get paid more. He was not a union member. When the union found out he was doing the same work for slightly less, they sent some people over to threaten his life if he didn't join union or leave. He left.

I had a father that worked as a fisherman for a small company which was not union. He ended up dying because the owners didn't properly inspect the boat and it capsized because of a fatal flaw in the design, killing everyone on board. Using your same argument, we should abolish all corporations, correct? Since a poorly ran corporation can quite literally kill people due to negligence. I find it honestly absurd that p…

Corporations don't pretend to be on the workers' side; unions do.
Post reply on HN