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Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

reuters.com

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Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#91

Post by dagurp »

kerosene wrote: post #83
dagurp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say you lose your negotiating power? The union will ensure that you have the same basic rights (and salary) that everyone else in the field. That doesn't mean you can't ask for a raise or a higher starting salary.

What typically happens with unions is the agreement will likely contain a salary guideline adhered to most of the time, which diminishes individual leverage.

If there's any sort of competition for employees then you have to be ready to offer more than the guideline to keep/attract the best people.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#92

Post by adriancr »

zaarn wrote: post #88
kerosene wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What typically happens with unions is the agreement will likely contain a salary guideline adhered to most of the time, which diminishes individual leverage.

Your overall leverage is increased through the union so you are more likely to get a fair compensation than before.

not if the union negotiates upper limits on compensation.

Or it negotiates yearly raise brackets.

You can negotiate better individually if you are good and there arent union enforced guidelines, if you're not, the union deal would work out better.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#93

Post by PierceJoy »

kerosene wrote: post #83
dagurp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say you lose your negotiating power? The union will ensure that you have the same basic rights (and salary) that everyone else in the field. That doesn't mean you can't ask for a raise or a higher starting salary.

What typically happens with unions is the agreement will likely contain a salary guideline adhered to most of the time, which diminishes individual leverage.

The unions you are referring to are almost universally for blue collar workers. Most professional athletes are members of unions. Most highly paid actors are members of a union. Neither of those groups have decreased individual leverage. It's unlikely that a union for highly paid white collar workers would closely resemble a union for blue collar workers.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#94

Post by PierceJoy »

adriancr wrote: post #92
zaarn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your overall leverage is increased through the union so you are more likely to get a fair compensation than before.

not if the union negotiates upper limits on compensation. Or it negotiates yearly raise brackets. You can negotiate better individually if you are good and there arent union enforced guidelines, if you're not, the union deal would work out better.

Professional athlete unions are a strong counter example. Unions do what their members want them to do.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#95

Post by kilotaras »

adriancr wrote: post #92
zaarn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your overall leverage is increased through the union so you are more likely to get a fair compensation than before.

not if the union negotiates upper limits on compensation. Or it negotiates yearly raise brackets. You can negotiate better individually if you are good and there arent union enforced guidelines, if you're not, the union deal would work out better.

Or it can do nothing of the sort, instead negotiating things like non-competes, options exercise window, etc. See screen writers or actors unions for examples.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#96

Post by arethuza »

spurned_dev wrote: post #46
supernova87a wrote: post #37

For all the ire on this site about the likes of Google, Apple, etc. screwing over the small company with their 30% app store fee, why isn't there even more outrage over the founders and startups who screw over their even more deserving-of-help employees? You know, the employees who get subjected to unregulated dilution, tyrannical bosses, unreasonable hours and unclear compensation for trading off the prime years of…

Oh gonna need a throwaway for this one. I had an exit interview where the founder told me their endgame was to destroy the value of the company to buyback the equity they sold to investors. I've never been more insulted in my life.

What I never understand about these kinds of things is that it is bad enough to plan to do that, but why go around telling people what you plan to do?

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#97

Post by andy_ppp »

arethuza wrote: post #96
spurned_dev wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh gonna need a throwaway for this one. I had an exit interview where the founder told me their endgame was to destroy the value of the company to buyback the equity they sold to investors. I've never been more insulted in my life.

What I never understand about these kinds of things is that it is bad enough to plan to do that, but why go around telling people what you plan to do ?

Human nature to talk about things that play on your mind? Could also be to show off how clever you are. But yes it’s slightly insane!

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#98

Post by hehsjsbb »

Waterfall wrote: post #75
adrianN wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Startups don't have a virtual monopoly on jobs the issue is much less pressing than with app stores. Of course that doesn't mean that programmers shouldn't form a union.

Unions only seem to benefit the union leaders. Union membership have long dropped precipitously for decades for over 50 years at least. Programmer are in no danger of being stuck like McDonald's workers. They're free to work elsewhere and the NDA are as good as toilet paper.

Some large unions have been corrupted, but that doesn't mean conceptually unions are bad. This is a great example, where UPS deliberately sought out a bad union for its employees to stifle more progressive organizing: https://isreview.org/issues/58/rev-ups.shtml

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#99

Post by celticninja »

chrisseaton wrote: post #81
adrianN wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are democratic entities. They do what their members want them to do.

At best, they do what the majority of their members want. Which may be completely at odds with your interests. For example a union of mainly older members voting for pay-by-seniority and damaging younger people’s pay. Democracy in a union can become a tyranny of the majority. That’s one reason many people don’t want unions.

Isn't that democracy everywhere though? And it's still better than any of the alternatives by a significant margin.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#100

Post by PeterisP »

irjustin wrote: post #73
MacsHeadroom wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The board has a fiduciary duty to act in the interest of shareholders. If the shareholders were not part of a vote, ie. the board voted, then the board is potentially liable for damages.

> The board has a fiduciary duty to act in the interest of shareholders. The problem is the 'shareholders' is made of multiple groups. A relatively common setup is Investors, Founders, Other Common Share Holders (Employees, Gifts). If there are 10 seats, Other Common will likely only hold 1 vote. So the board voted in its best fiduciary duty that represents 90% of the votes. It's quite easy to see how employees can g…

In most jurisdictions there are strict rules on protection on minority shareholders that make it illegal for the majority of votes from robbing other shareholders of their rightful share; in such events the minority shareholders are entitled to compensation, and this is what's happening now.
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