
Software Engineers Fired for Attempt to Unionize - harrumph
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/04/lanetix-tech-workers-unionization-campaign-firing
======
randyrand
Per-company unions are actually very effective and can't be encouraged enough.
In a well run company union, employers have no other choice for purchasing
labor - functioning just like a local monopoly. AT&T charges me out the ass
because I have no other option; per-company unions enjoy that same privilege.
Very few people break ranks.

That said, the biggest issue for per-company monopolies is having everyone
agree on a wage structure. They work easiest for similarly paid groups of
people.

~~~
scarface74
Software Engineers are the easiest to outsource. A manufacturing company would
have a hard time convincing people from the other side of the country to move
to work. A company can easily get a software developer who is willing to work
remotely.

~~~
randyrand
That's a great point. Getting remote workers to agree to unionize sounds
difficult, particularly if the company does not have an open contact
directory.

------
icholy
I'd be interested in hearing the other side of this story.

~~~
bb88
First, even if the company was truthful -- and I've seen very few companies be
truthful about firings -- they probably couldn't be due to the threat of
lawsuits. But I have no reason to doubt the basic facts, a popular engineer
was fired. The workers threatened to unionize, and the workers were fired and
replaced with ones offshore.

Second, there's a lot of reasons a company can fire its labor. E.g.: Labor is
cheaper offshore, say. And yes, a company can fire all of its union labor and
replace them with overseas workers if they so chose. (MAGA? Anyone?)

Third, in the US, we ask that companies give us certain benefits, such as
health/dental insurance and so leaving a company is really more painful than
it needs to be. Granted, his account is going to be painful, probably because
for someone like him, it really is painful.

~~~
eesmith
That's an interesting word choice. "Threatened" carries with it some negative
connotations. I think you mean it as "An expression of intent to injure or
punish another". (Quoting Wiktionary.)

Do you think the company owners consider unionized employees to be a
punishment? Or is that your personal view of unionization coming through?

The article quotes one of the organizers as saying "We asked the company to 1)
recognize our right to organize and 2) do right by Jane."

The word 'threat' _is_ used three times in the text, as in:

> But it was the threat to outsource our jobs that pushed the majority into
> supporting unionization. To be clear, we didn’t think it was a credible
> threat. The codebase was exponentially the most complicated I’ve ever worked
> on — it wouldn’t have been easy to outsource the coding labor.

You write "a company can fire all of its union labor and replace them with
overseas workers if they so chose", but that's not 100% true. The National
Labor Relations Act prohibits a company from engaging in certain 'unfair labor
practices'. That is, section 7 of the NLRA is:

> Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or
> assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives
> of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the
> purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,

and section 8(1) says it is an unfair labor practice:

> to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the
> rights guaranteed in section 7

That's why the article says "NewsGuild-CWA has since filed a complaint with
the NLRB, claiming that the mass firing was illegal retaliation for trying to
unionize."

~~~
bb88
> Or is that your personal view of unionization coming through?

Personally, I'm all for unionization.

And then you quote some documents:

> Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or
> assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives
> of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the
> purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,

> to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the
> rights guaranteed in section 7

I agree with this. But proving that happened is hard. All the company needs is
a reason to fire someone. That can be pretty much any valid reason other than
the employees were forming a union.

How does a company get around this:

1\. Company sees lawyers. Lawyers offer advice to control the messaging and
emails and open up a software development house off shore.

2\. Company lays a paper trail showing the cost/benefit analysis of moving
labor overseas and meetings about the effect, as well as a decision outlining
the decision as one of cost.

3\. Company fires people, knowing that the labor dispute won't come into play,
ending the issue for everyone involved as a side effect.

~~~
eesmith
To be technical, I quoted two parts of the same document. ;)

I agree that it can be hard. However, it is not impossible.

My comment was to point out that there are limits to the statement "a company
can fire all of its union labor and replace them with overseas workers if they
so chose". In some cases this is illegal, and the company may face penalties.

I don't know much about labor law. I know more about civil rights law, and it
seems the two are structured similarly.

Under Title VII, retaliatory behavior is not permitted, and a suspiciously
close timing like this is one of the factors which support a claim that there
was retaliatory behavior.

Mass firing of everyone who tried to unionize is another.

I agree that it's possible for a company to fire a unionized staff en mass and
outsource the work. Based on the description in this essay there seems more
than enough evidence of possible illegal behavior to justify discovery, and
management doesn't seem subtle enough to carry it off properly.

------
harrumph
Let this tale make some basic, yet usually hidden, workplace realities 100%
clear for everyone:

1) Labor and ownership have fundamentally opposing interests.

2) Ownership is utterly dependent upon labor.

3) Merging labor and ownership of an enterprise by removing nonproducing
stockholders from the equation is the only sustainable way to eliminate the
fundamental conflict of interest.

It must become better understood that nonproducing stockholders' presumption
of entitlement to the value created by labor is merely a choice that is
temporarily indulged by labor. It is not a law of nature.

------
jiveturkey
my first thought is, be careful what you wish for.

but then i think about the plight of game studio folks.

