
Kickstarter Senior Staffers Are Pushing Back Against Colleagues' Union Efforts - howard941
https://gizmodo.com/leaked-memo-shows-kickstarter-senior-staffers-are-pushi-1833470597
======
HillRat
Just going to raise an eyebrow at the company’s assertion that people with the
titles “senior manager” and “senior editor” aren’t in managerial positions.
They’re either being disingenuous or have some _serious_ title inflation going
on there.

~~~
ganoushoreilly
I know a lot of places put _Senior_ as just a way of differentiating from Tier
1,2,3 positions etc. Doesn't always mean they're managers. It's also like how
the title VP is used these days in finance.

------
cde-v
Well yeah, they're senior, they got theirs, fuck everyone else.

~~~
harryh
You might want to look at the LinkedIn of the Senior Software Engineer who
signed this letter before getting too harsh with your scorn.

[https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilaratna/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilaratna/)

We're not talking about a senior executive here. We're talking about someone
with ~5 years of experience.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
More like 8 or so.

Completely apropos of the major topic, I love that this person got a degree in
fine arts and is now a senior software engineer. That kind of thing is
something that I really like about the technology space.

------
TomMckenny
So long as every one agrees that some sort of organization is desirable, I
can't see what's wrong with potential members arguing out the details. That's
the point of the democratic component.

On the other hand, subterfuge to derail the whole process with a form of
concern trolling is not cool.

------
duado
Unions tend to equalize rewards because of their one worker one vote
mechanics. Union representation will probably bring up the compensation of the
worst workers and lower the compensation of the top workers, so senior
employees are right to fight the unionization effort.

~~~
egypturnash
Senior employees _who are motivated only by personal profit, with absolutely
no feeling for their fellow humans_ are right to fight the unionization
effort.

~~~
max76
This is black and white thinking. There is a wide range of possible positions
between "motivated only by personal profit, with absolutely no feeling for
their fellow humans" and wanting to build a union.

~~~
justin66
Parent post was responding to black and white thinking:

 _Union representation will probably bring up the compensation of the worst
workers and lower the compensation of the top workers, so senior employees are
right to fight the unionization effort._

------
rb808
> Forming a union is a great tool—for marginalized workers. Unions are
> historically intended to protect vulnerable members of society,

Is this really true? Every union building site I see has mostly white guys. If
I see a site with lots of other ethnicities its probably non-union.

~~~
tfehring
I don't have a great intuition for this, so I looked it up. It looks like
Black workers are more likely than White workers to be union members, while
workers of other racial minorities are less likely [0]:

> _Among major race and ethnicity groups, Black workers continued to have a
> higher union membership rate in 2018 (12.5 percent) than workers who were
> White (10.4 percent), Asian (8.4 percent), or Hispanic (9.1 percent)._

But it's possible that the story is different for construction workers or for
other individual sectors.

[0]
[https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.htm)

~~~
exolymph
I'm sure that it varies somewhat by industry. But also, the absolute
populations of white and black people in America are pretty different, so it
matters how you measure this. A higher proportion of blacks could be union
members, and still the absolute number of white union members could be larger.

~~~
niij
How else would you want them to measure it besides ratios? What would absolute
numbers mean in this context?

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ummonk
“Senior” in your title doesn’t really mean much, other than that you aren’t
entry level.

------
iancarroll
> Kickstarter can fail. Our company is looking for funding to secure our
> financials, as we’ve heard in multiple All Hands communications.

Looks like this is also leaking that Kickstarter is raising...

~~~
drak0n1c
Kickstarter's CEO (and the last of their original founders) also resigned this
week:

[https://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/CE...](https://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/CEO-
and-co-founder-of-crowdfunding-giant-13701180.php)

------
jeffreybaird
> Forming a union is a great tool—for marginalized workers. Unions are
> historically intended to protect vulnerable members of society, and we feel
> the demographics of this union undermine this important function. We're
> concerned with the misappropriation of unions for use by privileged workers,
> some of whom receive compensation more than twice the average income in NYC,
> in addition to flexible work from home hours, above-and-beyond industry
> standards for parental leave, 25+ days of paid vacation, a wellness stipend,
> a bike stipend, an education stipend, a weekly catered lunch, and a great
> deal of other benefits. We're already a radically thoughtful and ethical
> company with our PBC, and can do more to lead the way in the tech industry
> by providing an open environment that's free of hostility.

Because a company treats their employees well, they always will. And employees
should just take what they are given instead of trying to get a seat at the
table. Welcome to the brave new world of woke stools and scabs.

~~~
freewilly1040
It’s not a guarantee that collective bargaining will help privileged workers,
and union dues aren’t free. The statement is a bit cheerleadery, but isn’t
necessarily irrational.

~~~
sct202
Yeah, I used to work at a company with a mix of union and non-union sites, and
the unions were good in a sense that the company standardized a lot of general
union policies across sites. So the end result was the non-union sites had
most of the pros of a union and none of the fees.

------
EliRivers
_before resorting to something as extreme as a union_

Either unions in the US are messed up, or they have a terrible terrible press.

~~~
TomMckenny
US unions are no different than any place else.

There has always been a fierce anti-labor streak in US politics. Even the
first red scare in 1920's (before the cold-war!) associated all unions and pro
labor moments and even speech as communist.

There is a feverish anti-union attitude even among people who have never even
met anyone in one. If you ask, you will even find intense dislike of every
foreign union without even knowing it's name or where its country is.

~~~
baobrain
I think it's inaccurate to claim that there are people who aren't enamored
with unions simply because people don't like unions.

Take police unions for example. It is well documented that many unions are
fervently against policies such as always-on body cams that theoretically
should protect a (good) cop and the citizen. Fail that, they are against
releasing body cam footage.[0] Police unions are also known to protect abusive
officers. [1]

I'm not trying to claim that there isn't an anti-union attitude, but it is not
simply associating them with communism.

[0][https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/nyregion/new-york-
police-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/nyregion/new-york-police-union-
body-camera-lawsuit.html) [1]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/how-
pol...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/how-police-
unions-keep-abusive-cops-on-the-street/383258/)

~~~
TomMckenny
And therefore an engineering union is probably going to be bad?

Some police unions do these things and need to be stopped. But that does not
mean all unions in every field are bad. There are evil corporations too, are
all corporations bad? Are the majority? Why does the public precive that
differently?

Since the cold war, the communism claim has given way to universally negative
portal: the sole presentation in fact is negative. Usually by tacitly implying
an unusual behavior is typical and inevitable of every possible union.

The difference is Exxon runs ads of happy children running through flowery
fields and unions don't. And pointing out a union's deficiencies is not going
to loose sponsors, possibly the reverse.

------
TheMagicHorsey
Union shops are lowest common denominator places. High performers tend to
leave because seniority and politics dominates promotion and wages.

Apart from this, senior union reps and management tend to get cosy and form
coalitions against workers and shareholders.

The people that win are the people that are good at politics, workers that are
mediocre, and people that are uncomfortable with fast-paced change. Unions are
great at slowing things down and keeping things in slow comfort zone so people
don't have to learn new things.

Imagine the mediocre 50% of your company gets to determine the processes and
procedures used in your team. That's a union shop.

Imagine that manager who isn't very good at his job but is good at politics
and that union rep getting drinks after work, and making a coalition against
the fast rising manager with aggresive new initiatives in mind ... that's a
union shop.

Long term your company will stagnate and die.

Short term, a bunch of mediocre people will feel comfortable.

Flavor of the day workers will get hired based on checking boxes ... not based
on any objective criteria/merit. That's a union.

Ever wonder why 90% of cops are white in the Bay Area, even when the
neighborhoods are 90% non-white? That's a union.

Unions are the big lie that political animals tell everyone else ... OH JUST
GIVE US THE POWER AND WE WILL EMPOWER YOU!

It's only true if you are incapable of providing for yourself. If you have the
skills, fight against the union as long as you can, and then leave.

Best decision my parents ever made was to leave the union-choked midwestern
city where I was born, to come west thirty years ago. I probably would have
been one of those rust-trapped casualties by now if my parents had stayed.

~~~
RaceWon
> Union shops are lowest common denominator places. High performers tend to
> leave because seniority and politics dominates promotion and wages.

This is absolutely not true in the trade unions. In an earlier life I was a
union plumber (on my way to becoming a master licensed plumber; and to this
day I can walk into virtually any commercial or light industrial jobsite, and
tell you at a glance, if it is a union or non-union job). I don't just mean
the plumbing work either; but also the electrical, and the pipe and/or steam
fitting, and I'd be right 90% of the time. Such is the difference between the
training and tradition of taking pride in your work.

Salaries are also Not carved in stone. I was once paid $300 a week over
General Foreman's wage to run a job, and that was in the mid-eighties.

They are not perfect, and yes it can be harder to get rid of a real slacker,
but nothing is impossible. And FWIW based on what I read on here in terms of
the problems a lot of coders have with age, performance reviews and
interviewing--you guys should definitely consider forming a union...or for
Pete's Code Up App and stick together!

~~~
TheMagicHorsey
How much does plumbing need to change with the times? I suspect it changes at
a glacial pace compared to high tech. Also, how much does it matter whether
your pipes are done by top 1% of plumbers vs just some average plumber?
Probably the work is interchangeable as long as the plumber has some
experience and has been trained.

None of that is true when you are building something cutting edge with
competitors lapping at your heels. Maybe web development has become like
plumbing now ... but search algorithms, robotics, space travel, etc. are
certainly not.

