If you're interested in getting organized with your coworkers like this, there are a lot of other tech workers who can provide training and advice.
https://code-cwa.org/upcoming-trainings https://collectiveaction.tech/
Fastmail Employees Form a Union
91–100 of 303 posts
Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unions don't always indicate there is a problem in need of solving. It's just a group of employees agreeing to bargain collectively with their employer, which helps balance out the negotiation power between employees and the employer and creates a stable, well-defined employment relationship.
I struggle to imagine a scenario where employees would unionize despite already feeling like they are treated fairly. The union/employer relationship is inherently hostile. The whole idea is that unionized employees can threaten production/profits as negotiation leverage. Choosing that path means the employees have already given up on cooperation based on goodwill. It must take a very sour relationship to reach that…
This is wrong.
This is like saying that the whole relationship of employer/employee is inherently hostile because the employer can threaten wages/livelihood as negotiation leverage.
Unions are kind of like HR that serves the employees
Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Unions create an adversarial relationship between labor and management Isn’t there still an adversarial relationship between non-union labor and management? So the story goes: Management wants to pay as little as possible for the most work and labor wants to get paid as much as possible for the least amount of work?
> Management wants to pay as little as possible for the most work and labor wants to get paid as much as possible for the least amount of work? Well for example, at Netflix, management specifically paid extra for good labor and offered interesting problems, and in return we did extra work because we were motivated by the interesting problems and the great co-workers. And at Google back in the day, they gave significa…
What about Netflix's practice of using an employee until they aren't of any use then disposing them? A practice that applied to an employee that helped draft it?
https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/inside-netflixs-n...
Or how, when the pandemic hit, people realized even with all the perks a Google/Apple campus gives you it was still preferable to stay at home, or even move to a more preferable place, and avoid the tour bus commute? Not to mention the lack of transparency in pay which will stagger individual negotiation efforts when employers apply, or attempt to apply, a WFH tax.
Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union
#94Also a Fastmail customer and prounion. I'll be watching this closely.
I have been ecstatic about the quality of service. Fingers crossed management does the right thing and retains their customers and employees.
Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union
#95LinkedIn says Fastmail has 116 U.S. based employees. I may be completely off base here, but if you're that small an org and employees feel the need to form a union, wouldn't that indicate a significant problem with company culture?
According a toot posted today, they have 50 employees: https://mastodon.social/@fastmail/111585249083411392
Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
That could be a long play from the employer side to disincentivize the workers from joining forming/joining a union.
Is the goal to improve wages and conditions for workers or is the goal that everybody's in a union? If companies improve wages and conditions for workers to deter then from forming or joining a union, then there is no need for a union. Unless you've fallen for partisan faith.
There is also a time aspect to the equation.
The goal is to improve wages and conditions for workers in a sustainable way so that the improvements are guaranteed to persist over time and not be a one time thing.
Basically it's important to not lose the war by winning one battle.
Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union
#97Slightly off topic, but could someone explain why employees in the US keep having to form their own union at each company, rather than the employees just joining an existing union? If I wanted to join a union where live, I'd just pick a relevant union, go to their home page, and click 'join'.
Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union
#98Unions are fascinating to me. When you are in a Union, part of your money goes to the union in order to, hopefully, make things better for you. This means the relationship between Union leadership and the Union members is just as important as between Union leadership and the company. Historically, we have seen Unions bring things like worker safety to the forefront and do numerous things to help people out. More rece…
What we need are Unions Squared. It’s a union for the union. If the first level union isn’t fighting for the workers they lose their membership. But… what if the second level union fails…
Or have elected officials. If the union isn't fighting for you...elect someone who will.
To me, unions are a lot like democracies. They can function very well, but need constant oversight by their constituents to ensure that they are working towards the interests of all members.
Not coincidentally, the strongest democracies are the ones with many laws regarding transparency to eliminate corruption.
Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
As long as there's an option to not be in the union, it's completely fine IMO. In a free market, the best option will win. When non-union jobs are better than union jobs the need for the union should vanish (in theory).
The evidence doesn’t support this claim, and is why over 1000 VW workers in Tennessee indicated their intent to join the UAW after the UAW won historic benefits from automakers.
>and is why over 1000 VW workers in Tennessee indicated their intent to join the UAW
out of how many workers total?
Re: Fastmail Employees Form a Union
#100As a Fastmail customer: great! More power to them. If anything, any negative reaction by Fastmail, the corporation will act as a signal for me to start thinking about moving away. You know a company is morally bankrupt if they fight their employees unionizing. I don't think Fastmail will do that though.
> You know a company is morally bankrupt if they fight their employees unionizing Any company would oppose their employees unionizing; they have a fiduciary duty to do so
> fiduciary duty to do so
Is that actually so?