
Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing - tmm
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/19/18254995/kickstarter-unionizing-union-representation-inclusivity-transparency-tech-us-crowdfunding
======
yibg
I'm not against unions in general or in principle, but some implementations
are not great.

I suspect like some folks here, my personal (negative) interactions with
unions have turned me off of unions in general. I worked at an unionized shop
when I first graduated and while I recognize some of the positives the union
brought, there were also many downsides.

Some examples:

\- Nepotism. We had an open position we couldn't fill for over a year because
one of the union leader's son was graduating soon and that position was
reserved for him.

\- General complacency. Raises and promotions for the most part weren't based
on performance, but rather tenure. Many people start off ambitious but end up
just doing the minimum over time because there is no reward in trying too
much.

\- Strange (from my perspective) rules. I couldn't have more than one CAD
going at one time, and because CAD is backlogged the turn around time was
super long. This meant for long stretches of time I couldn't do any work. But
I also couldn't leave. I read a lot of wikipedia pages during this time.

Eventually I got super bored, didn't see any growth potential and wasn't
learning much so I left.

I assume not all unions are like this, but I do hear things similar to this
from others (many on this thread) quite often as well.

~~~
zaksoup
> Nepotism. We had an open position we couldn't fill for over a year because
> one of the union leader's son was graduating soon and that position was
> reserved for him.

I don't know of any industry where this _doesn 't_ happen. Certainly in tech
there's plenty of anecdata about nepotism in hiring, no unions required.

> General complacency. Raises and promotions for the most part weren't based
> on performance, but rather tenure. Many people start off ambitious but end
> up just doing the minimum over time because there is no reward in trying too
> much.

Again, this doesn't differ much from non-union industry. Anecdotally (I know)
almost every silicon valley tech company seems to have poor ratings in their
internal polls for "we fire/retrain low performers". This isn't a problem that
is unique to unions, nor can I see any evidence that it's _worse_ in unionized
workplaces.

Here's a fact about unions: Average union wages are 18% higher than non-union
wages. [1]

[1]
[https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/04/art2full.pdf](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/04/art2full.pdf)

~~~
plainOldText
> Here's a fact about unions: Average union wages are 18% higher than non-
> union wages.

According to the paper you referenced, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in
private industries and under the category "Management, professional, and
related occupations" employees earned more actually – $35.70/h – compared to
workers represented by unions, who earned an average of $32.95/h.

I would assume the majority of software engineers work in private industries,
thus would fall under the aforementioned category, and as a result would
actually earn more by not joining a union. Am I missing something here?

Furthermore, it's unclear whether those wages include other types of
compensation, such as stock grants and bonuses for example, in which case the
difference would be even greater.

~~~
JamesBarney
Here's the relevant paragraph.

> In private industry, there is a different pattern among workers in this
> occupational group: those represented by unions earned an average of $32.95
> per hour, while those not represented by unions earned $35.70 per hour. The
> wage advantage for nonunion workers in this occupational group reflects the
> concentration of union workers in certain relatively low-paying occupations
> in business and financial operations, such as claims adjusters, accountants,
> and training specialists.

~~~
zaksoup
Thank for pointing this out. The 18% figure is from the global average and
that analysis of the private industry number certainly suggests that as unions
become more prevalent in higher-paying occupations the trend there will
reverse.

------
ace_of_spades
To make this discussion maybe a little bit more solution oriented, what would
be your solution to problems of labor mistreatment? Or do you suggest that
nothing like that exists?

I recently came across an interesting talk by Richard Wolff at Google [1]
which suggests that a great solution would be the democratization of the work
place in the form of worker coops. It’s actually a tried and true model that
works well in a variety of contexts. It would probably solve the problem you
outline as well as make labor mistreatment a lot less common.

1:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc](https://youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc)

~~~
tomohawk
Start a "consulting" business that provides really good pay and benefits to
all of the workers. Be very selective about who you let in.

You're now in the business of providing workers for companies that produce
stuff. If they want access to your workers, they sign a contract with your
company. If some workers don't like working for some particular company,
transfer them to places where they like to work.

You've now created a private union that operates on a consensual basis rather
than a coercive / adversarial basis.

~~~
bluntfang
Some of my peers have thrown around the idea of team hires. Interviewing as a
team and working as a team. The team is hired and quits together and is
generally a collective that works within itself.

~~~
erklik
Isn't that now essentially a company that work gets subcontracted out to? or
am i missing the joke?

------
edoo
I've been in a union before. The work ethic wasn't good. They had seminars on
how to work less and push back against complaints. They directed the members
to engage in behavior that was best for the union while bad for the workers
and the company. The union itself is a big business, what would they think of
unionizing the union? Unions allow substandard work for equal pay. That tends
to hold back the major opportunities for individual success.

~~~
bargl
I think this means we need to re-think how unions work. It should be used to
create fair workplaces.

My concern with the anti-union rhetoric in the USA is that we then turn to the
government to protect workers. I think it's a lot better to have a union vs
government as long as that union isn't protected from competition like they
are today.

If we can introduce competition into unions then they might better serve the
workers and the company.

~~~
tylerl
Unions don't exist for the employees' benefit, they exist for the union's
benefit. There's a big ol difference, and because of their protected status,
unions get away with a lot of really horrifying behavior.

I've worked with several unions in different industries, and I can say pretty
categorically that unions are brazenly unethical.

Unions may sometimes improve working conditions and pay, but only in the sense
that the mafia reduces crime. You have to start out from a truly horrifying
place for their bargain to be any better, and in taking that deal you're
giving up on ever having a healthy environment.

~~~
mcv
Employees shouldn't join unions that don't exist for their benefit. And if a
union doesn't benefit the workers, they should leave and start a new union.

This happened years ago in Netherland: many railway employees weren't happy
with something their union (part of the largest union federation) negotiated
for them, so they left and started a competing union to negotiate for them
instead. Messy, embarrassing for the big union, but it solved the problem.

Not sure if the alternative union still exists or if it merged back into the
large union again.

------
nerder92
As a EU citizen, it always surprise me how the popular retoric about unions is
to associate it with lazyness. I think is just undermining of what union
actually really are.

I personally found this as a first step toward a perception shift about tech
from which we can all benefit.

Unions for instance can help fight this constant non extra paid "after-hours"
working culture that force you to do all-nighters and all this kind of crazy
shits just because the industry is seen as a bunch of nerds that are that
passionate about programming that stay long hours just for the sake of
love/passion for the job itself.

~~~
jdavis703
My sister worked at a charter school. Because of previous labor violations
teachers were not allowed to show up before class started (they could only be
there for the official class hours). They also were not allowed to stay late
after class.

My sister thought this was ridiculous, how was she supposed to setup her
classroom and answer questions afterwards? Unfortunately her boss warned her
that coming early and staying late was not allowed.

Once unions start adding work rules like this you'll see a push to disable
after-hours emails, banning weekend work, etc. So while the trope of the lazy
union worker is deeply flawed, there are some problems for workers who want to
go above and beyond (and while most non-tech workers don't get extra
compensation for unpaid overtime, tech workers who go above and beyond
actually are rewarded with equity)

~~~
flukus
> Because of previous labor violations teachers were not allowed to show up
> before class started

So the school was expecting teachers to come in early to setup, not paying
them for those hours and punishing those that didn't. This isn't a problem
created by labor unions, it is a problem created by exploitative companies.
And when the company decided how they would address the issue they decided
that pre-class preparation wasn't worth paying for.

------
cableshaft
If Kickstarter can do it, the game industry can do it! Come on, game industry,
it's your time to unionize!

~~~
diminoten
It'll never happen so long as there are "gamers" who want to work in the
industry they "love", unfortunately.

~~~
ForHackernews
Why not? The US film industry is mostly unionized, and there's tons of people
who love movies, too.

~~~
diminoten
The supply of jobs is much lower in the games industry relative to the demand.

~~~
robocat
And there are way more actors than acting jobs.

Yet they have the SAG-AFTRA union which had a strike to force better working
conditions from games companies.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016–17_video_game_voice_act...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016–17_video_game_voice_actor_strike)

~~~
diminoten
There are "way more" actors in the sense that there are many people who want
to act for a living, but the analogy doesn't hold from an education and
experience married to that desire standpoint.

Further acting is older than gaming, and those unions were given space to form
during a period of time that was very different from today.

~~~
naravara
>Further acting is older than gaming, and those unions were given space to
form during a period of time that was very different from today.

In the 1930s back when union organizing was likely to get you beaten by goons
or assassinated by hitmen/the mob? Or in the 1940s and '50s, when active
membership in the union put you at risk of getting brought up in front of the
House Unamerican Activities Committee and blacklisted from ever working again?

~~~
diminoten
That's not at all how the film industry's unions formed or any of its history,
and blackballing a statistically small number of writers was wrong, but
completely unrelated to what we're talking about...

------
lacey
I haven’t had a large number of interactions with unions but I have seen some
things that definitely turn me off of them, e.g. requiring two or three people
from as many different unions to set up a booth at a conference because
multiple skills are required and the unions negotiated with the venue to have
each step done by union employees with those specific skills. So eg the people
assembling the structure couldn’t plug in computers and the people who plugged
in computers couldn’t assemble the booth structure.

What I have heard a couple times now from relatives of union members is that
senior people who know union leadership sometimes end up on “disability”,
meaning there is nothing wrong with them but they don’t work and get paid.
They have doctors in the loop to certify the disability. I have no idea if
this is actually widespread.

My own personal reluctance with joining a union is that I feel like I do
pretty well negotiating for myself.

Having said that, perhaps a tech worker’s union could result in 30-hour four-
day workweeks with reasonable minimum vacation, and that would be worthwhile
if it became the industry norm.

~~~
JamesBarney
I think a tech workers association similar to the AMA would be helpful. I
think the best work it could do would be to push for standardized contracts
around intellectual property(company doesn't own everything you touch even in
your free time) and non-competes(for instance must be paid some % of salary
while non-compete is enforced). And the second best work it could do would be
to push for standardized on-call/overtime multipliers.

These things are harder to negotiate for than salary and would be healthy for
the industry.

~~~
chimeracoder
> I think a tech workers association similar to the AMA would be helpful.

A voluntary organization that less than 25% of people in the industry are
members of, and which doesn't seek recognition by the NLRB?

That's very different from a union.

------
msghacq
It will be interesting to see what this does for developer salaries at
Kickstarter. If, as a top performer, I get penalized by joining the union then
obviously Kickstarter looks less attractive to me. For unions in our industry
to work they are going to have to be very explicit about how they are going to
raise developer salaries.

~~~
praptak
Companies in general are crappy at recognizing top contributors anyway. Tech
companies are no exception.

~~~
WillPostForFood
This is a problem everywhere, but it is worse when you are stuck with
unionized employees. Compare public school teachers to private school
teachers. Higher pay (thanks to unions) for public schools, and lower quality
(thanks to unions).

~~~
max76
> (thanks to unions)

Is there additional information about how unions lower the quality of public
education inside the United States?

~~~
ericd
Look up rubber rooming in NY schools. Basically, they can't fire teachers with
tenure (which they get relatively quickly compared to eg college professor
tenure) for even gross misconduct, so they end up paying them to sit in a room
doing nothing. If there isn't enough budget, they have to lay off newer
teachers, even if they're doing well.

~~~
flukus
I looked it up:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reassignment_centers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reassignment_centers)

> Although teachers are now being charged more quickly, it still takes several
> years to complete the hearing process and for the arbitrator to render a
> decision.

So they get stood down until they've had a misconduct hearing, that seems
fair, we don't want to ruin careers on allegations alone.

> In June 2012 it was revealed that the New York State Education Department
> had not paid its arbitrators for several years, and collectively owed them
> millions of dollars for cases they had completed, or were in the process of
> hearing. In frustration, ten of the 24 arbitrators on the New York City
> panel have quit, while the remaining 14 refuse to hear any testimony or
> issue any decisions until their back wages have been paid in full.

This is a massive administrative failure, I don't know why your blaming
unions.

~~~
ericd
I'm not blaming them for the number of people in those rubber rooms or for the
terrible administration of that school district. I am blaming them for how
hard it is to fire a teacher the administration doesn't want, for whatever
reason, to the point where new, exceptional teachers are being let go because
they have to keep around older teachers with tenure who are phoning it in.
That drags down the average quality of teaching in the US.

That said, I also think that good teachers should be paid much more to attract
more talent, and make it a viable alternative to more careers for people who
aren't willing to sacrifice their finances to teach.

EDIT: I should also note that NYC public schools are an incredibly challenging
teaching environment, a lot of false accusations fly around, and I don't mean
that all the teachers in the rubber rooms should be let go. I just disagree
that teaching should be a tenured position.

~~~
flukus
> I am blaming them for how hard it is to fire a teacher the administration
> doesn't want, for whatever reason, to the point where new, exceptional
> teachers are being let go because they have to keep around older teachers
> with tenure who are phoning it in.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but is there any evidence that it is a huge
problem and not isolated cases?

> That said, I also think that good teachers should be paid much more to
> attract more talent, and make it a viable alternative to more careers for
> people who aren't willing to sacrifice their finances to teach.

The problem is not having a way to quantify what a good teacher is. Is it the
one that imparts a love of learning on there students or the one that gets
better test results? Is it the one in the wealthy area or the one in the poor
area where kids aren't even being fed? If the students do poorly is it the
teachers fault or did a teacher in a previous year skip crucial topics?

Paying good teachers more isn't possible until you can identify good teachers.

> I just disagree that teaching should be a tenured position.

Well there I agree, it should at least be very rare. It does sound strange to
me, I don't think it's a thing in my country and even in academia tenure isn't
as strong.

~~~
ericd
Sadly, I've only heard anecdotal evidence from young teachers I know, and
maybe some reading I've done in the past, so I don't have any sources on hand
to point to, and maybe it's isolated rather than endemic.

You're right that it's hard to quantify whether someone is a good teacher or
not, but I don't think it's impossible to judge. It's probably impossible to
make it a simple succinct rubric, though. Maybe it's a challenge for a
universal function approximator like a neural net :-)

------
nanokilo
If this works out, this has the potential to be huge for the industry. I would
love to see more unionization in tech, and this could be a first step in that
direction.

~~~
segmondy
It's going to end badly, unlike factories where a walkout would but a strain
on production. A walkout necessarily doesn't put a strain on tech. Companies
are going to embrace distributed teams/remote teams very fast and unionizing
will just be a reason to close up shop in that location. That's what I imagine
happening, predicting the future is hard tho.

~~~
hajile
A programmer walk-out is way worse. The Bus Factor is a real thing. Hire a new
team to replace the old one on a complex project and it'll be months or years
before they start doing anything productive. Making things worse, bit-rot is
real and threatens existing software with failure if complaints aren't
addressed.

~~~
cableshaft
If everyone in my department walked out and a new team had to be hired, they'd
just be screwed. There's not enough documentation and the system is pretty
complicated, with bits of it hiding everywhere and a bunch of ancient code
that we never got around to refactoring (especially after they laid off half
our department and another half quit afterwards, without replacement).

I'm sure whenever I get a new job and resign they're going to be like 'oh
shit', because there's just not anyone left to replace what I do, really (I'm
the last person in the department with a good amount of knowledge on their
proprietary and stupid complicated phone systems, and they've kept me too
swamped to be able to do any knowledge transfer worth a damn).

And in phone systems, there's always something going wrong or down, it seems
like, often network related.

------
bwestergard
This is fantastic news.

I'm one of the software engineers who was fired for organizing a union at a
SF/DC based startup last year. The National Labor Relations Board found in our
favor and we won a large cash settlement. But what we wanted was a union.
Seeing others pick up the torch is extremely gratifying. Below are some links
to news coverage of our case.

[https://gist.github.com/bwestergard/a77744dc6f3095fd3fb769dd...](https://gist.github.com/bwestergard/a77744dc6f3095fd3fb769dd3d6562ad)

If anyone has questions about the process, I'm happy to answer what I can.

~~~
czbond
Two questions: Why are tech company staff wanting to unionize? For the most
part, aren't tech staff reasonably to well paid - with good working conditions
and moderate hour expectations (say 40-50)?

Management has the right at a workplace to make any decisions, whether someone
in non-management sees fit. Can't people who are frustrated with the company
just go pursue a position elsewhere?

~~~
segmondy
Not a popular opinion, but these are usually non CS types that have flooded
the fields later due to money. Not very skilled, but very entitled. The sense
of entitlement is very ridiculous these days. I see folks outside the Bay
asking why shouldn't they get paid the same as Bay area folks, when they want
to remote from somewhere that has 1/3rd the cost of living. Or people outside
the country with 1/10th the cost of living wanting USD rates. ... or literally
"coders" who just know how to plumb software and build a basic CRUD wanting
compensation that's on par with FAANG level. The world has lost it's damn mind
and all I can do is SMH and watch with a grin.

~~~
crumpets
>I see folks outside the Bay asking why shouldn't they get paid the same as
Bay area folks

Pay has nothing to do with cost of living. That's a lie told by companies as a
negotiating tactic. You don't magically make the company more money by being
in the bay area.

~~~
solidasparagus
Pay has a ton to do with the cost of living, because salary is the lowest
amount you can offer while still enticing people to work for you - I'm not
saying penny pinch every dollar, but business is not charity. You don't
magically make the company more money by being in the bay area, but hiring in
the bay area gives the company an advantage (or else they wouldn't do it) and
they are willing to pay extra for that advantage.

~~~
moate
>>salary is the lowest amount you can offer while still enticing people to
work for you >> business is not charity

And this is why unions exist. Even if managers try to be nice, even if the
company gives out buckets of benefits and pays a living wage, this is the
adversarial thought that exists in business currently. Management wants to pay
the lowest they can, because that helps the business the most. They want to
spend the least amount possible because that's the correct business choice.

Management/Ownership and Employees are frequently at odds when it comes to
their goals, and changing the math from "me vs the company" to "the union vs
the company" is a huge boon for employees.

------
joejerryronnie
Well, there goes the high salaries, flexible working hours, and generous RSU
grants for tech employees. Have fun fighting and scraping for 2% raises,
paying exorbitant union fees for questionable benefits, and dealing with the
nepotism and personal politics of your union leaders. And thanks in advance
for adding to the unfunded pension liability crisis.

~~~
49531
You know unionizing isn't something people do lightheartedly. A lot of
planning and working goes into it, planning and working done by the folks who
want to unionize. The idea that you only get benefits if you don't agitate
your boss too much sounds pretty sad.

People don't join unions if they are going to be worse off materially.

~~~
alasdair_
>People don't join unions if they are going to be worse off materially.

Tell that to anyone whose workplace unionizes against their wishes and lives
in a "closed shop" state. (Yes, closed shops are illegal, but agency fees lead
to essentially the same thing).

Being forced to pay a fee to a union that does not represent you and that you
did not vote to join is absolute bullshit.

~~~
49531
You can say that about any job, union or non union. You don't join a job not
knowing it's a union job. But in a non union workplace, if you don't like how
things are you can change them. Good luck doing that without a union.

~~~
alasdair_
I am talking about places that turn into union jobs after you have been there
a few years.

------
CodeSheikh
Unions in tech companies is a very interesting idea. A lot of people never
speculate this idea because lets be honest most of them get paid really well
or visa workers are simply too scared to join such "abominable" unions etc
etc. If any one can start materialize unions would be the workers at FAANG
companies. And I am pretty sure rest will follow suit. As a tech worker, I see
this as a positive change. As a CTO, this should scare me. As an honest CTO, I
would see this as a balanced change for my subordinates and slightly shifting
the power dynamics towards them.

------
tomohawk
I wish them well, but having family members and friends work in unionized
workplaces, it's not something I would ever do.

It always seems to degenerate into an "us vs them" sort of thing whenever I
talk to them about where they work. Why would I ever work some place where
things are so adversarial?

You also end up with this 3rd party involved in everything, creating all kinds
of "rules" to make things "fair". Want to go on vacation? To make things
"fair", the most senior people get to pick their times first, and the new guys
get the not-so-good times. Don't care about the union's bullshit "industrial
action" and just want to work and earn some money? Get used to being called a
"scab". You get the point - it becomes more about knuckling under to what the
union wants than getting work done or having a career.

~~~
root_axis
This is senior engineer privilege speaking. A union seems strictly worse when
dozens of companies are falling over themselves to pay you in the 90th
percentile income bracket.

~~~
scrumbledober
I see no reason for any workforces at any of the companies I have worked for
as a developer to unionize. In my short career before that, however, I thought
it would be very helpful for the valet company I worked at to unionize.

~~~
root_axis
I certainly have. They were mostly the places where if you weren't perceived
as the type who is willing to stay till 8PM a few nights a week peppered with
the occasional weekend PR, you were relegated to the "poor work ethic" caste.
Unions aren't perfect, but they certainly stomp out this type of abuse and
force the company to either hire more people or pay fairer wages.

~~~
fastball
You're a senior developer and you don't think you're getting paid a fair wage?

Ok...

~~~
monocasa
Why shouldn't he? The bigger valley companies got caught in a wage fixing
scheme that by some estimates depressed wages by around 20% across the board,
and all they did is send out a few checks for a few hundred to some of the
employees.

He's almost certainly not getting a fair market wage.

~~~
naravara
>Why shouldn't he? The bigger valley companies got caught in a wage fixing
scheme that by some estimates depressed wages by around 20% across the board,
and all they did is send out a few checks for a few hundred to some of the
employees. >He's almost certainly not getting a fair market wage.

Bingo! Complaints like that sound like people getting mad at professional
athletes for getting paid and asking for more. If they get less money it's not
as if you, the fan, are going to see that in lower ticket prices or anything.
That's just money that goes to management instead. Why are YOU mad about it?

------
msghacq
_" America’s political climate is changing; among other things, the 2016
presidential election brought up the issue of wealth inequality in this
country and made people consider more closely the structural forces that
define class here."_

What on earth does the 2016 election have to do with wealth inequality (or
unions for that matter)? Inequality has been on the rise for decades and
Clinton was also a member of the 1%. This seems like a non-sequitur.

~~~
magissima
They're probably mostly referring to Bernie Sanders, who ran a campaign very
focused on wealth inequality. The union link is that when people become more
aware of inequality and by extension class, they become more likely to
participate in class-based politics and organizations such as unions, in
theory at least.

~~~
citilife
The part I seem to be missing, is that most of the people working at
Kickstarter are the top 2-5% of the U.S.. Their business caters to many people
who want to start projects, who aren't living pay-check-to-pay-check anyway.

I don't really understand the purpose of the unionization effort, beyond the
facade of just wanting to in some way "fit in" with a social movement.

~~~
speedplane
> I don't really understand the purpose of the unionization effort, beyond the
> facade of just wanting to in some way "fit in" with a social movement.

It's pretty naive to think unionization is just a social fad. It's a path
towards job security, safety, good pay, and control over the direction of your
own labor. Trendiness is pretty low on the totem pole.

~~~
solidasparagus
Collective control over the collective direction of the collective labor.
Unions, at least in practice, are only good for the majority of the laborers
and definitely not good for independent control over your own work.

~~~
speedplane
> Collective control over the collective direction of the collective labor.
> Unions, at least in practice, are only good for the majority of the laborers
> and definitely not good for independent control over your own work.

The alternative is complete control by the employer. Sure, a union, as an
institution with power, can likely limit some of your independence, but an
employer can limit all of it.

------
fareesh
> America’s political climate is changing; among other things, the 2016
> presidential election brought up the issue of wealth inequality in this
> country and made people consider more closely the structural forces that
> define class here.

What is a structural force that defines class in America?

~~~
magissima
Inherited wealth, disparities in access to education, racism, and a weak labor
movement are a few of the many forces that impede upward social mobility.

~~~
czbond
Whats wrong with inherited wealth? Literally anyone can pass on wealth to
their heirs. It takes no brains, and no special access. Just spending less.
People shouldn't be taxed more because they have more foresight or impulse
control than others. Yes, maybe it doesn't happen in one or two generations -
but it can. Also - lots of people have moved up in the world from nothing -
and it wasn't "inherited wealth" keeping them down previously. edit: as
minikites mentioned below, it is education that wealth can be transferred is
what needs to happen.

~~~
monocasa
"Have the poor just considered not being poor?"

~~~
czbond
Your emotional response to my logical statement doesn't necessitate a
downvote.... Edit: it should be inspiring, bc it shows that literally anyone
middle class or above can be incredibly wealthy if principles are followed for
3-4 generations.

~~~
monocasa
> Your emotional response to my logical statement

Wealth inequality has been increasing for 40 years despite worker productivity
rising. Nearly every metric shows the rungs to wealth being pulled away, and
I'm the non logical one here?

> doesn't necessitate a downvote

You were already downvoted before I commented.

> should be inspiring, bc it shows that literally anyone middle class or above
> can be incredibly wealthy if principles are followed for 3-4 generations.

You didn't 'show' anything; you simply stated economic religion.

~~~
czbond
But I do.

Wealth has nothing at all to do with worker productivity. It has only to do
with saving a lot more than one spends by spending less, or generating large
value to society with a monetary reward.

The pathway for any middle class family is through inherited wealth and NOT
some fantasty of wealth equality achieved in 1 lifetime. We need to stop
thinking in small terms of 'years'.

Wealth can be achieved generally in a family over the course of 1.5 centuries.
If a family applies good saving practices, and saves over 5-6 generational
lifetimes - it is very hard NOT to be wealthy. My parents were a fireman and
teacher. My grandfather paid for my college, my parents are paying for my kids
college, and I'm paying for my grand kids and great grand kids college -
SOLELY bc of saving over extended periods of time. That was our family deal -
take care of those after you 2 generations down. Thinking multi-generational
is the easiest path to success.

------
baby_wipe
So if they succeed, does that mean nobody can work for Kickstarter unless they
are part of the union?

~~~
chrisseaton
I don't know how unions work in the US, but most unions in the UK fund a
single political party, which means you could be forced to pay to support a
party with views you find abhorrent in order to work, so I hope not.

~~~
mises
Completely correct. Three of the top 10 election cycle 2018 contributors were
unions.

* Carpenters & Joiners Union gave $38,366,262 with $37,822,215 to democrats and $529,000 to republicans.

* Service Employees International Union gave $28,224,658 with $28,219,509 to democrats and $132 to republicans.

* Laborers Union gave $27,538,080 with $26,810,870 to democrats and $708,100 to republicans.

Source:
[https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?id=](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?id=)

As you can see, there's a massive amount of political spending by unions, and
it's almost completely on one side. The "right to work" laws which are so
demonized do at least provide one huge advantage: people are no longer forced
to contribute to a political campaign which they do not wish to support. There
has been court ruling around this area in the past few years, but it was a
problem for a long time and, to an extent, remains one.

~~~
asark
Seems no worse than an employer doing the same, directly or via interest
groups. Though they do _tend_ to be more equal-opportunity in their support.

In both cases the answer to "how do I stop supporting this political action I
don't like?" is "Quit. Hope your skills are marketable."

~~~
moduspol
> Seems no worse than an employer doing the same, directly or via interest
> groups.

Well, in one scenario it's _their_ money being spent. In the other, it's
_yours_. You don't draw a pretty clear distinction there?

~~~
asark
You get upset that tenants are subsidizing a landlord's political spending
without a say? Any time you give money to anyone else for any purpose, for
that matter? And "their money" comes from your labor (plus their capital, in
some share, yes) as surely as "your money" does. This is a way less clear-cut
distinction than you're making it out to be, and may not be relevant anyway:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_shop#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_shop#United_States)

~~~
moduspol
> This is a way less clear-cut distinction than you're making it out to be

It really isn't. I think we can all make arguments as to why we're justified
in taking from others, but that doesn't change the reality of what is
happening.

> may not be relevant anyway:

AFAIK this means only _public sector_ non-union employees cannot be forced to
pay for unions' political activities. _Private sector_ employees are still on
the hook. Unless there's something else you're trying to draw attention to.

~~~
asark
> AFAIK this means only public sector non-union employees cannot be forced to
> pay for unions' political activities. Private sector employees are still on
> the hook. Unless there's something else you're trying to draw attention to.

I'll pick out the part I think's most relevant, since yeah, that's a big ol'
wall of text.

"Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), as amended by the Taft-Hartley
Act, and held by the Supreme Court in Communications Workers of America v.
Beck that in a union security agreement, unions are authorized by statute to
collect from non-members only those fees and dues necessary to perform its
duties as a collective bargaining representative known as agency fees.[12]"

Collect fees? Yes. Spend those fees on political activities, if you're a non-
member? No. Unless I'm misreading this. The public unions bit comes next and
says that public sector unions can't even collect the _agency fees_ from non-
union members, which is a step farther and into union-busting territory. The
original point was that union fees amount to compelled political speech,
though (again, so does your company spending on politics, assuming they're
making money off you even in an abstract way, but whatever) and this seems to
make that moot, best I can tell. If that's wrong I'd like to know—I don't get
off on going around spreading incorrect info.

------
perlgod
Never understood the desire for unions in the tech industry. Thankfully the
USA has plenty of right-to-work states.

------
czbond
Why are tech company staff wanting to unionize? For the most part, aren't tech
staff reasonably to well paid - with good working conditions and moderate hour
expectations (say 40-50)?

~~~
asark
50's too much and 40 should include an hour of breaks. Noncompetes and very
broad claims of inventions and copyright by employers need serious push-back
until they're rare or illegal, and organized labor can do that.

Also it'd be nice if some of the more powerful workers here could organize and
help lobby for things like parental leave and minimum vacation for all
workers, including those without so much clout.

~~~
eqdw
Non-competes are illegal in California. If your contract contains one, the
non-compete clause is null and void

~~~
asark
One down, 49 to go, I guess. (probably there are a few other states where
they're illegal, but it's far from all of them)

EDIT: and there's still the "if you write a novel in your free time on your
own hardware we can try to claim it if we feel like it" clauses that are so
common.

------
gbear605
This is a big move on their part. If it’s successful for them, it could
inspire a lot of others. I’m curious what their reason for unionizing is.
Wanting more reasonable hours, perhaps?

~~~
moomin
Don’t get me wrong, I’m 100% supportive of unionising for better conditions,
but the thing I keep hearing from tech companies is that people want to
unionise to have a voice in the ethical practices of their firms. I wouldn’t
be surprised if this was as much about that as working conditions.

------
hackerpacker
" first major tech company "

I don't think that is even remotely an accurate statement, unless EVERY
company with a website is now a "tech company".

I took a peek at the data object in
[https://www.kickstarter.com/team](https://www.kickstarter.com/team)

And to me it looks like an art company, with very little focus on tech.

"favorite category" counts by # team members Art: 32 Film & Video: 29 Design:
27 Publishing: 15 Games: 14 Technology: 8 Music: 5 Comics: 3 Food: 3
Photography: 2 Theater: 2 null: 2 Journalism: 1

# of backed projects by "favorite category" Film & Video: 6264 Design: 2372
Games: 2325 Art: 2238 Technology: 1228 Publishing: 777 Theater: 310 Music: 181
Food: 119 Comics: 44 Photography: 28 Journalism: 5 null: 0

I would add that I find it incredibly ironic for a "creative" company to have
such rigid categories for what it deems "creative".

------
gtirloni
Maybe the US has a different experience with unions but in Brazil, they are
simply hated. They were made mandatory by law and very rarely (never?) step in
to help employees.

It's only at big factories that they show up when more than X number of people
are fired and do a big show out of that. Meanwhile, all the employees not
working for big factories paid their union fees and saw nothing back. It's
often a platform to launch their political careers.

Luckily, they are not mandatory anymore and now employees have to opt-in which
was a great change. They have to work to earn respect and those fees back...
but I'm not seeing much movement in that direction. So far they have been
going the legal route, trying to cancel the changes to the law (and have
lost).

In theory, the concept of unions is great but in practice, at least here, it
was a terrible thing, from my IT bubble perspective.

~~~
criley2
In the US, it is illegal federally to mandate that an employee join a union as
part of their employment, and it's illegal to force them to pay dues.

Some of our states go a step further and have introduced measures that seek to
directly attack the ability of employees to collectively bargain, to remove
the power organized labor has against management. These are called "right to
work states".

Generally speaking, RTW states have lower pay on average, they are less
educated on average, and their workers have less benefits from their
businesses (parental leave, vacation time, healthcare benefits, etc), they
have less recourses against employer bad behavior (both as a function of RTW
attacking collective bargaining, and from the reality that the same politics
that are against unions also are very anti-labor, anti-minimum wage, anti-
regulation of labor marketplace all together, so there are far less public
resources and regulators to assist with claims). If you're an employer, this
probably sounds great. Labor is cheaper and you can fire them whenever you
want for no reason at all on the drop of a dime AND there is no pesky
government regulator to come waste your time and money investigating. "Easy
come easy go" is one of the most common management philosophies from small and
medium business owners in my RTW state, from my experience.

From the perspective of an American: you choose a liberal/blue/union state
when you want good infrastructure, highly educated and competent staff, and
little turnover. You choose a conservative/red/anti-union state when you're
planning to take advantage of your staff, you don't care about higher
turnover, you want to pay below-national-market rates as a rule, and you don't
care as much about the individual quality of each employee. There's a reason
why tech companies don't pick the South and when they do they require billions
in literal free cash to do so.

It is what it is, but the slow death of the union in the United States
correlates quite perfectly with the slow death of the American middle class in
terms of wealth and income gains per year.

~~~
mrisoli
(disclaimer: also Brazilian, even if I don't live in Brazil anymore)

I have mixed experience with unions in Brazil, the fact that they are mandated
makes it almost like a scam, a part of your wages go towards union
contributions but rarely do you get anything out of that. Most directors at
unions are in it for political powers as the bigger unions are major players
in politics(as seen that our ex-president is a former unionist).

On one hand, unions can provide negotiation power, specially in class action
suits, including unfair dismissal. But most of the time I've seen unions
collude with companies and associations to provide underwhelming benefits and
wages that are below inflation.

In some cases such as medicine and dentistry they are solid credentials of
many professionals and I take it as mostly positive.

In the case of engineering it should follow the same as the engineer's union
is a very strong powerhouse that requires quite high minimum wages for
engineers(IIRC 8.5x the national minimum wage). However this has led many
companies to use a loophole where engineers are hired with a different job
title, performing the same job, just so that they don't have to pay that
minimum, while sometimes even requiring that said engineer is registered with
the union. As computer science is not engineering, even though some computer
engineers are qualified as such, I've never met a programmer that has a proper
engineer contract.

------
annexrichmond
What's still unclear to me from the article is what problems employees at
Kickstarter is facing for lack of a union and how, precisely, organizing a
union will address those problems.

Maybe I'm being presumptuous but being a tech company and all aren't the
employees are already relatively pampered?

------
themagician
Prediction: if whoever is leading the charge is even moderately successful in
getting employees to rally, they will be offered in job in management (at
Kickstarter or somewhere else) at twice their current pay and the whole thing
will crumble.

------
jeffreybaird
Congratulations Kickstarter! I hope this becomes a trend in the tech industry.
A union is not only about getting better pay, or more vacation - it is about
having a voice in the future of the company.

------
Apocryphon
Kickstarter was founded as a public benefit corporation, so they've always
been friendly towards social consciousness. Are there any other tech companies
that are PBCs or worker co-ops?

------
goldcd
My humble take is that unionization is valuable as a counter-balance in a
company and can benefit it and all within. Let's take extreme examples: 1) CEO
sees a blip coming in the quarterly income results. CEO disposes of enough
people to reduce costs, hit profit target and claim their bonus. CEO is better
off, company is worse off. Repeats each quarter until the CEO retires. 2) CEO
tries to focus company by laying off unionized employees in legacy area. Union
blindly prevents this, company is stuck on legacy path, company suffers and so
ultimately do the employees when it all implodes.

The problem in both cases is simply due to a misalignment of personal
goals/compensation within the company.

When it's "working right" The CEO can defend their "not randomly firing
employees" as being too expensive due to their unionized status. Converse is
that the union can accept that some employees need to go to be replaced with
other employees in another field to reflect the world changing (and help
relocate/pay off/re-train as needed).

In summary - plans rarely work out and ideally there's an internal
buffer/slush-fund to cover this. When you're publicly traded, there's always
going to be somebody demanding you cash in this buffer to the shareholders in
the short term. Unionization provides a nice external buffer.

------
laspegren
The merits of unionization aside, I don't understand how Kickstarter is
referred to as a major tech company. There are only 140 ish people listed on
The Verge site.

------
BerislavLopac
I think that the main problem with unions for software developers, especially
at this particular time, is that tech recruitment is very much a sellers'
market at the moment. Most of the companies have a lot of troubles finding
quality developers of all levels, remuneration is growing to absurd levels and
short-term contracting is almost a norm rather than an exception. For a
moderately experienced developer, changing jobs is both a) trivial, and b)
often the best way to ensure promotion and pay rise.

Unions were designed for a market where employers were taking advantage of job
scarcity and insecurity, and where changing jobs often meant difficult re-
training for new equipment and methodologies, which was often provided by
unions. That does not exist today, at least in the software industry; a solid
GutHub account is a much better certification than any training or even a
university diploma.

My point is that, for the majority of software people, traditional unions can
barely give any benefits over the power they can have themselves. And for the
best people it can even provide disadvantages by lowering the standards.

------
CalChris
Crunchbase says they were founded in 2009 and have 50-100 employees. They are
pre-IPO and 10 years old. Maybe if employees were more owners I think (not
knowing the inside story) this might have been less of an issue. Secondary
grant?

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kickstarter](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kickstarter)

------
burtonator
The biggest challenge we have with unions is game-theoretic.

Specifically, the issue of defection.

The company can make it very easy for users to defect or FORCE them to defect.

They can give bonuses to people not in the union (with plausible reasons for
the bonuses so it's not illegal) or do what Walmart does and simply shut down
the entire store in that location to prevent the union forming.

We need some way to solve this problem ...

~~~
navigatesol
> _We need some way to solve this problem ..._

It's called solidarity, and respect for your co-workers.

------
apl002
what are the pros/cons of unionizing? I dont know jack about this

~~~
freshcatch_
The way I heard it best explained is no one would try to start a union if it
made them less money.

Better pay and benefits - my maximum out of pocket was lower than most
deductibles. Democratizes the workplace - really helps keep management in
check. You get real job security - firing is much less arbitrary with a
steward fighting for you.

However, if people aren't active in union elections, bargaining etc. it can
get really stale really fast

~~~
chrisseaton
> The way I heard it best explained is no one would try to start a union if it
> made them less money.

People could start a union so _they_ make more money, but _you_ could make
less money.

For example pay by seniority. Great for the senior people in the union, not so
great for you.

~~~
gamblor956
Pay by seniority is a thing that developers keep bringing up and not
understanding the basic concept that seniority-based pay is a decision that
unions can adopt or reject.

Hollywood unions, for example, do not use a seniority-based pay scale.

~~~
chrisseaton
If there’s an industry-wide closed-shop union and it votes for seniority pay
then I’m out of luck. It’s replacing tyranny of the employer with tyranny of
the majority.

~~~
gamblor956
I don't think you understand how unions work...

Closed-shop unions are illegal in the US, for starters, so you can't have a
closed-shop industry-wide union.

The only industry-wide unions that exist set workplace protections and salary
_floors_ but no salary caps...and no indutry-wide union has ever embraced
seniority-based pay because, being an industry-wide union, that regime
wouldn't work across the very different economic environments of 50 states and
their thousands of cities.

------
TheMagicHorsey
Given my experience with unions, I’ll quit when the union forms at my
employer.

Unions increase the importance of political skills over performance. If you do
work but are bad at politics you’ll do worse in a union shop. Plus the
nepotism and collusion between management individuals and union leadership to
the detriment of shareholders, customers, and young workers is disgusting.

The only people who benefit are old underperformers in management and union
leadership. They form coalitions of mutual support and screw the rest of us.

Screw unions. They are for useless people that don’t trust their own
abilities.

They are only useful if the oligarchs block market competition for labor. But
we aren’t there yet ... and we can be vigilant by supporting action taken
against instances of collusion. Unions are no cure. They are like caking dung
on the wound.

------
the_bear
Is anyone aware of an example where (a) a really small company unionized
and/or (b) a workforce unionized without any real demands?

I run a 17 person company and I've heard employees mention that they think all
companies should be unionized even if there aren't currently any problems that
the union would seek to address. I strongly support the big tech companies
unionizing and so it would be hypocritical of me to be opposed to it for my
own company, but at the same time it seems like the overhead for such a small
company would be really significant and I'm not sure what it would accomplish
given that I'm not aware of current employees having any demands that we
haven't satisfied already.

Even if nothing comes of it, I think it's an interesting thought experiment.

~~~
lazyasciiart
What is the overhead?

~~~
the_bear
I'll admit I'm not very knowledgeable about the logistics of unions, but I
imagine there's some kind of up-front legal overhead. Like, maybe there are
contracts between the union and the company, or within the union itself to
determine how it's governed? I also get the impression there is some overhead
in an ongoing basis in the form of extra meetings, more complicated
negotiations, etc.

All of those things seem like relatively minor costs when spread out across a
large employee base, but I could see it being prohibitive for a smaller
company. Or maybe this is a solved problem and you can just find some
boilerplate stuff online that takes care of the whole process.

~~~
StudentStuff
It seems your mis-understanding what a union is, the union will talk with
management, forming an agreement as to what the pay scales are, how much paid
leave is given at minimum, and escalation processes like grieving an issue
when management does shitty things to the workers.

The "overhead" you speak of is to pay someone to negotiate on the workers
behalf, save up for a strike stipend, and provide worker training (usually
Unions will run or subsidize courses to help workers skill up, get licensed,
etc).

~~~
solidasparagus
And now you have a fixed payscale that could easily make it harder to hire.

------
philwelch
With apologies to Isaac Asimov, I did not realize they were ionized to begin
with :)

------
dismalpedigree
There are 2 types of unions (in general). There are skilled trade unions
(plumbers, electritians, etc) and strictly labor unions (TSA, agriculture
laborers, etc). If they are unionizing as a skilled trade union and the union
is thus ensuring training and quality of the labor, then i think it is a great
idea. If they are unionizing as a strictly labor union, then i see no value to
either management or the employees in the long term. From reading the article,
it looks like it is likely the later instead of the former.

~~~
omegaworks
> i see no value to either management or the employees in the long term.

The term for this "class consciousness." It's not that the value isn't there,
it's that you don't see it.

~~~
dismalpedigree
Perhaps you could enlighten us all as to what the benefits are to either
management and/or employees rather than just making vague comments that have
little to no meaning.

~~~
omegaworks
I could, but not for free. Google it. It is politics 101.

~~~
dismalpedigree
Nice way to shirk your responsibility to back up your statements.

~~~
omegaworks
Pay me.

------
imnotlost
Just make free (paid in pizza) overtime illegal at the federal level and most
of the work-life-balance issues would go away.

Add federal minimum vacation time too, 20 days at least.

"but but my margins!!!"

------
madrox
One thing this article didn't cover was how kickstarter's management reacted
to this news and why it's happening now. Are there issues at kickstarter that
will be addressed through collective bargaining? Was this move considered
necessary in order for leadership to take developer concerns seriously? I'd
love to know more.

------
laurex
Wonder how much their management troubles played into this
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/daveyalba/kickstarter-p...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/daveyalba/kickstarter-
perry-chen-founder-worship-turmoil)

------
JTbane
Unionizing is still good because at the end of the day you can be fired for
any reason.

------
sodosopa
I grew up in a blue collar union family, dad was a Teamster Master Steward and
my mom was a Secretary in the printers' union. I don't know how well it
translates to larger tech companies.

------
syntaxing
Is there such thing as "tech" that makes unionizing easier? AI that helps with
the paperwork, some sort of app the allows structure organization easier, etc?

~~~
kartan
> Is there such thing as "tech" that makes unionizing easier?

e-Mail, instant messaging, etc. Any form of communication makes unionizing
easier.

------
baybal2
> If recognized, Kickstarter would be the first major tech company with union
> representation in the United States.

What has happened with Microsoft's union?

------
maxxxxx
I wish the US would adopt the German model where unions are for whole sectors.
That way it's a level playing field for all companies.

~~~
duxup
When I've described my experience with American unions it I hear a lot for
Europeans who report their unions are far different than my experience.

The American union tradition / behavior seems quite different than what I hear
about elsewhere.

I'm interested in the European systems, but very very wary of the US systems.
Too many US unions are really just bureaucracies on their own, emphasize
seniority for pay, advancement, and etc, and seem to limit options for workers
in terms of flexibility. And to some extent american unions become their own
bureaucracy serving the folks embedded in that bureaucracy. Granted for some
jobs that probabbly is ok, but for technical things, I'm very wary about
flexibility and etc.

My experience with American unions has been highly disappointing and I'm
skeptical about their ability to handle a more technical / fast changing
world.

~~~
maxxxxx
From my experience the US workplace is much more hostile both ways. Either the
employer will screw over the employees or the union will try screw the
employer. At least in Germany it'a little more collaborative partially because
of laws that give employees some say how the company is run.

~~~
eqdw
It's not hostile, it's professional. I advocate for my interests, you advocate
for your interests, and we negotiate to find out a compromise that works for
both of us. During this process, I do not worry about your interests (that's
your job), and you do not worry about mine. We trust each other to take
responsibility for our own interests and proceed accordingly.

I can understand why this would seem hostile to someone who isn't acculturated
to it, but I don't find it hostile at all. I find it _honest_. The other side
isn't pretending to care about me, and they aren't making hamfisted attempts
to look out for my interests in ways that I don't like but they think I do (or
should).

~~~
ApolloFortyNine
I don't understand how the union isn't basically holding the company hostage.

A company can't fire all their union employees, so if the union decides
they'll only accept a deal that includes a 50% raise, what do you do?

I'm being serious here, from what I can tell it's not legal to fire your union
employees. So what do you do?

~~~
gamblor956
It's perfectly legal for a _business_ to fire union employees. The US is an
at-will country, and businesses are entitled to terminate employees for
financial reasons.

Even public sector unions can't prevent terminations for financial reasons,
though they negotiated no-fire clauses into their union contracts decades ago.

~~~
eqdw
Not true. At-will is state by state. And, of course, there is nothing stopping
either you or your employer from negotiating different terms.

~~~
gamblor956
You're right.

Montana isn't at-will after 6-months of full-time employment and follows the
French system.

The other 49 states are at-will employment, with generally the same rules with
limited restrictions.

I stand by my original comment. Even Montana has at-will employment for the
first 6 months.

------
citilife
Based on the comments in the article, it's not really clear why the
unionization is taking place?

Anyone with an insider knowledge want to elaborate?

------
barbecue_sauce
The article only says "staff". Does this include developers and technical
operations, or is it just office staff?

------
subpixel
This on the same day that the CEO steps down, for the second time. Sounds like
a lot is going on over there.

------
oh_sigh
What would tech unionizing realistically look like in the US? Lets say, at
some FAANG company?

------
BerislavLopac
Unions, like charity, mean that the government has failed in its job.

------
badcede
Nice of the hipsters to be the test case like this.

------
sarim
Who else read unionizing as un-ionizing?

------
mesozoic
This should go well. Good time to be a Kickstarter competitor I figure.

------
samstave
#GoFundMy Benefits

------
CryptoPunk
This is the end of Kickstarter as a dynamic company.

------
Schnitz
Nice!

------
anonymousJim12
Incoming screed in libertarianese about why unions are bad by Paul Graham on
twitter in 5..4..3..2..

~~~
czbond
Mostly libertarian here, but not aware of the full views of the party, so I
looked it up. Apparently the 2016 election view states on unions as below
which I don't see contradictory to unions. [did this for my own knowledge]

"We support the right of private employers and employees to choose whether or
not to bargain with each other through a labor union. Bargaining should be
free of government interference, such as compulsory arbitration or imposing an
obligation to bargain."
[https://www.lp.org/platform/](https://www.lp.org/platform/)

~~~
magissima
So "abolish the NLRB" then.

~~~
czbond
That's their stance, yes, I'm personally not fully libertarian and think an
NLRB is useful.

------
iceninenines
We also need more tech co-ops so employees can profit more fairly from their
crucial work, because a pittance of low-priority employee shares doesn't
really count.

------
normal_man
The anti-union rhetoric in America is staggering. You like weekends? Then stop
ragging on unions.

~~~
adamrezich
I have a friend who worked at a grocery store for a few months while waiting
for his teacher's certification to get processed and sent to the state he'd
moved to. It was a minimum-wage job, yet mandatory union membership at this
grocery store chain meant that a cut of each of his minimum-wage paychecks was
taken from him without anything he could do about it.

The idea that unions are inherently, universally good is just as silly as the
idea that unions are inherently, universally bad.

~~~
omegaworks
So you'd rather your friend be worked harder for his minimum wage? You'd
rather he be liable for the things people steal from the store? You'd rather
him be fired and be without medical insurance if he slips and falls at work?

Unions are why your friend isn't worked to death while he waits for his
teacher's certification.

~~~
eqdw
Believe it or not, some people actually are willing to work harder for more
money

~~~
anth_anm
A lot of the people who work hardest, horrible hours out int he cold doing
hard labour before you wake up, only make a reasonable living because of
unions.

People have literally fought and died for the right to unions, for unions to
be taken seriously. A bunch privileged silicon valley tech workers (not me,
I'm a privileged seattle based tech worker, totally different ;) ) write off
unions as inefficient and useless.

------
soheil
kinda ironic, a platform that relies on a community of people and donors and
leans on the socialist side of the spectrum is hit by a socialist leaning
ideology.

~~~
sethammons
That's not irony. Irony is when something happens that is explicitly not
expected to happen.

~~~
soheil
I disagree, I think you're describing what a surprise is.

~~~
sethammons
> Typically, the expression of one's intended meaning through language which,
> taken literally, appears on the surface to express the opposite—usually for
> humorous effect
> ([http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.201...](http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100011437))

------
justaman
Software developers are a far cry from auto workers or even teachers. Its
interesting to see the differences between early SV startups 10-15 years ago
that would brag about the benefits of working for them and now. Things like
ping pong tables, free dry cleaning, and daycare would be things people would
go out of their way for years ago.

Can someone explain what the Kickstarter employee's hope to gain? “promote our
collective values: inclusion and solidarity, transparency and accountability;
a seat at the table,” sounds very left wing in an already left wing company in
a left wing area.

------
Toine
I'm astonished by the reaction of some people here. They seem to live in a
alternate reality where every CEO is kind, doesn't try to reduce labor costs
at every opportunity, doesn't treat his employees like cattle, etc. 20th
century unions had their issues of course, but using extreme cases of
dysfunctional unions is not a argument to totally disregard unions as a
concept.

~~~
joeblau
It doesn't look like Kickstarter will have a CEO anymore either[1].

[1] - [https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/19/18273318/kickstarter-
ceo-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/19/18273318/kickstarter-ceo-
resigning-perry-chen-chairman-board)

~~~
pseudalopex
"Chen has picked a successor as interim CEO: Aziz Hasan, who currently heads
Kickstarter’s design & product teams."

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holymacaral
I have long thought crowdfunding is ripe for disruption. We should not need a
middleman to send people money over the internet. It can be accomplished via a
smart contract and creator listings could be self-hosted (think openbazaar).
It could also fix the censorship issue inherit to these platforms.

With Patreon raising prices and now this, maybe someone will crowdfund an
alternative.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Throw the word blockchain in there and you’ll have a winner :)

~~~
holymacaral
It would use a cryptocurrency of course and probably a stablecoin. That means
there's a blockchain somewhere along the line although crowdfunding would be
an excellent use case for lightning-style payment channels to compress fees.
If you pay a recurring fee every month then that's 12 fees a year. With
payment channels we can reduce it to 2 - the fee to open the channel and the
fee to close it.

------
dec0dedab0de
I think there needs to be an overall IT union, with apprenticeships and the
whole thing. Make new people do QA testing, or tech support as they work on
their other skills and level up. Get mandatory overtime to finish a project,
then get laid off and collect unemployment until the Union needs you again.
Just like carpenters and glaziers and all.

EDIT: Instead of replying to everyone individually. Over the last ~15 years
I've held jobs from tech support to network engineer to full stack developer.
In each of them I have noticed that recent college grads are almost always
clueless, and basically have to start from scratch. These are kids with
massive student loan debt that could have started working earlier and learned
through an apprenticeship.

~~~
robbyt
I almost agree.

Have you talked to anyone who does professional entertainment/movie work about
their thoughts on unions?

Unions are expensive, corrupt, and don't actually do much to help most of the
workers. The unionized workers hire contractors to do the real work for many
features, and are parasitic organizations that mostly just drive up the cost
of making movies.

There was recently an article in the Times about a local NYC union president
who's office is decorated with such high-end fixtures & furniture that he has
a second office on another floor just to appear more humble. I can't find it
at the moment...

