Labor Board Backs Startup Engineers Fired for Unionizing • Hacker News Board

Re: Labor Board Backs Startup Engineers Fired for Unionizing

#91

Post by repsilat » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 9:04 AM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #86

Centigonal wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and workers can also form unions if they want to. Why do you want to limit their freedoms?

Exactly. I would consider myself pretty conservative and a little bit libertarian and I fully support the rights of workers to unionize. I dislike when governments get involved and starts forcing employees to join unions. But if you want to unionize, you have that right. If the companies don't want to play ball, they can fire you and waste time and money trying to hire an all new workforce.

Union activities are essentially price-fixing. We let employees in unions "collude" and "exert anti-competitive influence" because we want to give them more market power relative to companies.

When you talk about giving unions as free associations, it's fair to ask whether companies should share the same rights -- if tech workers can get together and agree not to work without a pay rise, shouldn't tech companies be allowed to get together and agree not to increase pay?

I think if we're going to distinguish between those cases it should be on pragmatic grounds, because I don't think talking about principles (or any "natural right" divorced from the simple letter of the law) here is terribly useful.

Re: Labor Board Backs Startup Engineers Fired for Unionizing

#92

Post by solatic » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 9:47 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #11

A little bit of a tangent, but, > Earlier this month, after five years of organizing, security officers for companies including Facebook, Google, and Genentech, many of whom were making between $12 and $14 an hour, ratified their first union contract. They won wage increases of up to $1.20 per hour, better health care, and, for the first time, paid holidays. How is this rational? Do Facebook and Google believe they a…

Even if the security guard is paid $200/hour, it doesn't matter. If someone puts a gun to your head, you're going to comply - nothing is worth your life. This is a large part of the reason why militaries spend much more time on psychological molding of their soldiers, because it's much, much easier to convince somebody to put themselves in the line of fire for Reasons than it is for a paycheck. The kind of security folk who actually are willing to put themselves in the line of fire for a paycheck (mercenaries) simply do not exist in the numbers needed for manning private sector security across the economy, so again, the pay is largely irrelevant.

The real purpose of security guards is to raise the cost of an attack, in terms of the number of people needed to carry out an attack. A larger attack party translates into the jackpot being divided into more payouts, and therefore the jackpot needs to be larger in order to justify the attack, not to mention the increased risks involved with coordinating a larger-scale attack (keeping opsec etc.). One security guard is easily subdued by a lone wolf attacker, or avoided. Multiple teams of roving security guards need much more coordination to subdue or avoid, without raising an alarm.

Even if you are interested in bribing a security guard, again, a single security guard doesn't provide much protection, but the more security guards on each shift, besides the amount of money needed to bribe all of them, each additional guard raises the risk of the bribe being reported and the attack failing.

Precisely because many security guards are needed for effective security, the ease of training new security guards, and the ease of hiring new ones, are security guard wages relatively low.

Re: Labor Board Backs Startup Engineers Fired for Unionizing

#93

Post by dexen » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 9:59 AM UTC

repsilat wrote: post #91

jjeaff wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I would consider myself pretty conservative and a little bit libertarian and I fully support the rights of workers to unionize. I dislike when governments get involved and starts forcing employees to join unions. But if you want to unionize, you have that right. If the companies don't want to play ball, they can fire you and waste time and money trying to hire an all new workforce.

Union activities are essentially price-fixing. We let employees in unions "collude" and "exert anti-competitive influence" because we want to give them more market power relative to companies. When you talk about giving unions as free associations, it's fair to ask whether companies should share the same rights -- if tech workers can get together and agree not to work without a pay rise, shouldn't tech companies be a…

>Union activities are essentially price-fixing.

Fair point. You could also say it makes certain sense vis-a-vis the company shareholders (be it the founders, or stockholders) being "colluding" and "price-fixing" on the other end of the employment deal.

Re: Labor Board Backs Startup Engineers Fired for Unionizing

#94

Post by amaccuish » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 10:42 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #19

fogetti wrote: post #8

> Despite their futuristic sheen, tech companies “actually operate like traditional industrialists and will go through old fashioned methods of suppressing workers,” he says. Spot on.

And workers can quit. There are jobs everywhere.

https://9gag.com/gag/a1oyMOY

Re: Labor Board Backs Startup Engineers Fired for Unionizing

#95

Post by geofft » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 12:33 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #18

geofft wrote: post #11

A little bit of a tangent, but, > Earlier this month, after five years of organizing, security officers for companies including Facebook, Google, and Genentech, many of whom were making between $12 and $14 an hour, ratified their first union contract. They won wage increases of up to $1.20 per hour, better health care, and, for the first time, paid holidays. How is this rational? Do Facebook and Google believe they a…

What’s rational is that people are accepting positions at those pay rates. If you don’t want $12 per hour, go somewhere willing to pay more — even fast food pays more than that in the Bay Area. Entry level at Target pays over $15. They don’t need a union, they just need to quit and go work somewhere else. No shortages of jobs in the Bay Area— essentially everyone is hiring right now. Why should the company be blamed…

My question was specifically about the rationality of offering these wages, not about accepting them. Whether or not companies deserve blame for the employees taking jobs with low pay, that wasn't my question at all. My question is whether it makes sense to entrust security to people with low pay.

By your argument, it doesn't; a single well-placed argument from you can have all the security guards from Google tomorrow and someone helpful in every aisle at Target.

And I can't tell you much about bananas but in my first tech job out of college my management sat me in a room one day and said, "We think you're doing a good job so we're going to pay you more." Apparently this is called a "raise" and is not uncommon? There must be some rationality behind it, even though I've never give a so-called "raise" to a banana.

Re: Labor Board Backs Startup Engineers Fired for Unionizing

#96

Post by geofft » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 12:37 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #16

geofft wrote: post #11

A little bit of a tangent, but, > Earlier this month, after five years of organizing, security officers for companies including Facebook, Google, and Genentech, many of whom were making between $12 and $14 an hour, ratified their first union contract. They won wage increases of up to $1.20 per hour, better health care, and, for the first time, paid holidays. How is this rational? Do Facebook and Google believe they a…

Those folks do physical security. Aside from access to buildings and stuff they have access to little else, plus they have supervisors and people at the company who supervise them, plus doing weird things will trigger alerts and stuff, so I don't think they can do a lot beside ignore alarms for an intruder who would not have access to digital assets. Plus, NDAs are pretty powerful tools. I mean, if a guard lets you i…

Leave a web-connected microphone near Project Zero's desks.

Re: Labor Board Backs Startup Engineers Fired for Unionizing

#97

Post by canhascodez » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 1:18 PM UTC

repsilat wrote: post #91

jjeaff wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I would consider myself pretty conservative and a little bit libertarian and I fully support the rights of workers to unionize. I dislike when governments get involved and starts forcing employees to join unions. But if you want to unionize, you have that right. If the companies don't want to play ball, they can fire you and waste time and money trying to hire an all new workforce.

Union activities are essentially price-fixing. We let employees in unions "collude" and "exert anti-competitive influence" because we want to give them more market power relative to companies. When you talk about giving unions as free associations, it's fair to ask whether companies should share the same rights -- if tech workers can get together and agree not to work without a pay rise, shouldn't tech companies be a…

Why is it fair to ask that? Tech companies are not people.

Re: Labor Board Backs Startup Engineers Fired for Unionizing

#98

Post by apexalpha » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #82

fisherjeff wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on what would’ve been worse if the devs had unionized?

At each of the companies I've worked at in this field, management and developers had a close and healthy relationship. Introducing collective bargaining would only have created an artificial distance between individuals. One company stands out as a good example. Great benefits, sub par pay. They actively solicited feedback on a regular basis, and at one point gave out near universal raises when they introduced pay ba…

>In short, we got everything we needed, and it has been fair. Some employees individually bargained for more time off, or for work from home time, or higher pay.

There is nothing preventing a union from bargaining a system like this. We have this at my work.

Everyone gets 20days off for holiday, but other than that we have a 12.5% annual bonus ('13th month') with a system where people can opt for 7.5% bonus in return for more days off. This is just an example you can set the percentage yourself.

Or you can put it towards your pension, life insurance... idk there is a whole range of options.

Re: Labor Board Backs Startup Engineers Fired for Unionizing

#99

Post by SolarNet » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 1:34 PM UTC

repsilat wrote: post #91

jjeaff wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I would consider myself pretty conservative and a little bit libertarian and I fully support the rights of workers to unionize. I dislike when governments get involved and starts forcing employees to join unions. But if you want to unionize, you have that right. If the companies don't want to play ball, they can fire you and waste time and money trying to hire an all new workforce.

Union activities are essentially price-fixing. We let employees in unions "collude" and "exert anti-competitive influence" because we want to give them more market power relative to companies. When you talk about giving unions as free associations, it's fair to ask whether companies should share the same rights -- if tech workers can get together and agree not to work without a pay rise, shouldn't tech companies be a…

Tech companies have colluded on the hiring side in the past. But here is the difference. Companies are meant to be entities that provide economic activity through competition (for example on free markets), that's why governments grant them charters that give them tons of rights people don't get (limited liability and special tax rules for example). Unions are designed by workers to protect their rights, originally this was simply through them organizing through their right of free association before the government got involved in it (because they recognize the grant of rights they gave to companies made for an unfair situation in the labor market). Importantly one is something designed to encourage economic activity, and the other is something designed to protect rights.

So no companies should not share the same "rights", because that's called being anti-competitive. Labor unions are only capable of "exert[ing] anti-competitive influence" when unions have recruited every worker (probably for a good reason) or companies engage in union busting against workers who have done nothing wrong (except talk to a union). Don't want to deal with organizing employees? Don't sign a contract with them (the employee-employer relationship also granting companies a bunch of useful rights).

Re: Labor Board Backs Startup Engineers Fired for Unionizing

#100

Post by mmirate » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #32

briandear wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s rational is that people are accepting positions at those pay rates. If you don’t want $12 per hour, go somewhere willing to pay more — even fast food pays more than that in the Bay Area. Entry level at Target pays over $15. They don’t need a union, they just need to quit and go work somewhere else. No shortages of jobs in the Bay Area— essentially everyone is hiring right now. Why should the company be blamed…

Wages set by the free market can be below what is necessary to survive, and it is our job as citizens to ensure public policy exists (and yes, unions) to ensure wage floors that allow people to live with dignity and without chronic stress from the fear of destitution. You don’t have to agree with this sentiment of course, that’s what votes, elections, and the ability to organize are for.

> Wages set by the free market can be below what is necessary to survive

... and this conveys the fact that the work to be done, isn't considered valuable enough to support a human life.

Making these kinds of jobs illegal just puts them out-of-reach of youths and speeds up the perennially-villified yet inevitable process of automation.