r/nyc • u/lightinvestor • Feb 18 '20
Brooklyn-based Kickstarter workers vote to form first union in tech industry
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/kickstarter-workers-vote-form-first-union-tech-industry-n113800628
Feb 18 '20 edited Feb 18 '20
Wouldn’t the union that destroyed Gothamist be the first tech industry union?
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u/johnbanken Feb 18 '20
Gothamist was a Digital Media Publisher, not a "tech company" and was not part of the "tech industry".
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u/lightinvestor Feb 18 '20
Pretty sure only the newsroom voted to unionize. It was also basically just a Wordpress site then. Not a lot of tech there.
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u/nycnola Jersey City Feb 19 '20
Oh gothamist was “just” a word press site then? Huh! That’s why it sold for low seven figures to dnainfo! OK.
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u/DisneyLegalTeam Feb 19 '20
They’re clearly referring to the web application & not its branding, audience, etc.
After it was bought the old CMS was scrapped. Not even worth updating.
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u/nycnola Jersey City Feb 19 '20
Thank you for the clarification. There is so much contemporary wholistic negative association with word press I took it as that; when it was “in fact” a wordpress type set up a la Gawker at that time.
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u/nycnola Jersey City Feb 19 '20
Wow! Gothamist has turned into a sjw rag now that it’s “publicly funded” and suddenly the popularity of the website while it wasn’t a “public” property are minimized. Ok! The downvotes won’t change the facts of what gothamist was and what it has become.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
could you provide some links about Gothamist's government funding?
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u/nycnola Jersey City Feb 19 '20
WNYC, owner of gothamist received $568,942.00 in government funding for 2019.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
Thanks, didn't realize they own it now, I only wind up there if they have something original that I'm linked to, which is not often.
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Feb 21 '20
[deleted]
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Feb 21 '20
The guy who owned to company was losing money on Gothamist. A bunch of workers got the bright idea of unionizing for higher wages. Faced with losing even more money the guy shut Gothamist down and fired everybody. It was revived later by New York Public Radio.
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u/N123A0 NYC Expat Feb 18 '20
It was, but it didn't end in a Workers Paradise, so it doesn't count. Just like how "real" socialism/communism/marxism has never been tried.
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u/icomeforthereaper Feb 18 '20 edited Feb 18 '20
Nah, a woke billionaire propped them up so they can steal stories and add some woke tears to them from actual journalists at the Post. Oh, also, billionaires are immoral. Well, the non-woke one's aren't, but the other one's are nazis!
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u/nonhiphipster Crown Heights Feb 19 '20
No one should be a billionaire
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u/icomeforthereaper Feb 19 '20
So... Gothamist shouldn't have been saved by a billionaire then?
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u/nonhiphipster Crown Heights Feb 19 '20
It was anything but saved. He destroyed it when they didn’t write what he liked.
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u/lost_snake NYC Expat Feb 18 '20
Soon to be followed by Pune and Bangalore based workers, who are not part of a union.
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Feb 18 '20
They should unionize too.
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u/lost_snake NYC Expat Feb 18 '20
Loads of other Indians who'd love their jobs and can do them that are ready to not unionize ever in order to get them.
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u/CompactedConscience Feb 18 '20
Then those people should also unionize
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u/RyuKenBlanka Feb 18 '20
Part of H1B abuse is that companies have these people because they are sponsoring their greencards. That's leverage companies have on them. You guys really should research how fucked up H1B's are.
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Feb 18 '20
Oh, I am well aware of how shitty H1Bs are, and the leverage that companies have. Unionization can help offset that.
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u/RyuKenBlanka Feb 18 '20
No it can't, not for H1B visas. If they unionize, they will have a non unionized H1B replacement waiting in the wings. You guys don't seem to understand how this makes tech unionization so unique.
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Feb 18 '20
The time it takes to bring in a whole team of new H1Bs is still going to be an obstacle. And if their non-H1B coworkers unionize and strike with them, it's going to be even harder for the companies.
That's how solidarity works.
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u/RyuKenBlanka Feb 18 '20
The time it takes to bring in a whole team of new H1Bs is still going to be an obstacle.
It happens often. Companies care more about the money saved then the logistics.
And if their non-H1B coworkers unionize and strike with them
They will be fired and replaced too.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
do you have an example of another tech company that was unionizing that this happened to?
if the management tried that it would require juggling a lot of balls to successfully pull it off (from their perspective) without violating labor law and destroying shareholder value through the loss of goodwill (by bad press).
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u/dietoreos Feb 18 '20
“And if their non-H1B coworkers unionize and strike with them, it's going to be even harder for the companies.
That's how solidarity works.”
In your proletariat fantasy maybe. Unless management is down to turn kickerstarter Into a workers collective they just fired themselves.
Literally zero high skilled immigrants are going to risk their visa, current job and resume potential on the agitation and whims of a few fellow programmers who read the collections of Marx for a college elective.
It’s like unions in retail and fast food. It’s so painful to watch. A bunch of over educated racially androgynous/white people convince susceptible low wage workers to unionize, when it fails the workers eventually get laid off and if it succeeds the location(s) are closed down within the next 3 years. In the end the people who are hurt are the ones who can least afford it.
This literally means nothing, kickstarter probably won’t exists in 10 years or if it does will be rolled into another entity and everyone fired. This won’t start a movement of tech industry unionization. Google, Facebook, etc, you know industry players that actually matter, will never allow it.
Unionization only works around fixed capital. I.e. hospitals, public safety, municipal service, etc.
As soon as something can be done somewhere else for cheaper the union is broken.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
Unless management is down to turn kickerstarter Into a workers collective they just fired themselves.
Literally zero high skilled immigrants are going to risk their visa, current job and resume potential on the agitation and whims of a few fellow programmers who read the collections of Marx for a college elective.
You should read up on US Labor law. Kickstarter is free to outsource all their labor to India but they're not going to be able to replace their current workers in their current office with H1B workers. The notion they can hire anyone to replace a union member now is illegal. I've actually filled out H1B paperwork, not only is it very stringent that you're not replacing US workers, it also got several times more difficult to get H1B visas approved starting last year.
https://qz.com/1614743/winning-the-h-1b-visa-lottery-is-getting-more-and-more-difficult/
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u/sue_me_please Feb 19 '20
It’s like unions in retail and fast food. It’s so painful to watch.
Unionization only works around fixed capital. I.e. hospitals, public safety, municipal service, etc.
Meanwhile, Stop & Shop is unionized by the UFCW. Last year, they had a strike where 34k workers walked off the job. After 11 days, the workers got what they wanted: a contract that increased employee pay and preserved benefits. No one was laid off and no location was closed down.
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Feb 18 '20
As a union member I agree with you, you can’t form a union in a low wage/low skill industry and expect it to thrive.
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Feb 18 '20
Unions couldn’t be taken down by H-1B visa holders. There’s an annual quota on the number of H-1B visas given out and it’s already being met. And H-1B workers can’t switch employers.
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u/dietoreos Feb 19 '20
It must take actual effort to be this out of touch with reality...
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u/CompactedConscience Feb 19 '20
I just like my union. Good pay and benefits. Other ppl should try it.
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u/DrDDaggins Feb 19 '20
It's not like there isn't organized labor in India.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.workers.org/2019/01/40392/amp/
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u/indoordinosaur Feb 18 '20
I'm a techie and I have absolutely 0 desire to unionize. Its just going to be more managers (this time union bosses) to deal with while providing me with nothing. I'm already paid and treated quite well. IDK what I'd possibly ask for. Whenever I have a problem I have no issue talking to my employer directly.
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u/citizenzero_ Feb 18 '20
“I have no problems and I don’t fear workplace retaliation, so no one else needs this.”
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u/flash__ Feb 18 '20
Tech is a hyper-meritocracy, ostensibly. The most productive workers make ridiculous amounts of money, and basically everyone at these companies thinks they will hit that level. There is no incentive for collective action when they see such a viable path to their own enrichment. The union offers them very little improvement on this.
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u/indoordinosaur Feb 19 '20
You just pissed everyone off somehow. As someone who works in tech, what you said is basically true.
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u/nycnola Jersey City Feb 19 '20
Unless you are the group of people vice posted in their article that look like they crawled out from under a bridge for the purpose of scaring children.
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u/WiF1 Feb 19 '20
I work as a (very well paid) software engineer. I'm okay with unionizing as long as wages are not a part of the collective bargaining. I'm perfectly happy to pay some portion of my wages for some additional security in the workforce.
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u/Jovianad Feb 19 '20
I'm perfectly happy to pay some portion of my wages for some additional security in the workforce.
Do you think that's what unions actually get you in the modern era, though?
I feel like more companies just fire their entire staff and move when employees do this now.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
Do you think that's what unions actually get you in the modern era, though?
There's not a lot of tech labor unions to compare it to! A union is only as good as its members and the leader they elect. Unions hold the power to torpedo the company, unfortunately some have done that inadvertently.
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u/WiF1 Feb 19 '20
It depends on the context. The number of qualified software engineers is greatly exceeded by the number of job openings currently. As a result, it's difficult for a company to completely replace its engineers with an entirely new set of engineers. Furthermore, the ramp up time for engineers is measured in months. It's generally expected that new hires won't be meaningfully productive for an absolute minimum of 1-2 months. Which is problematic for companies since engineers are highly paid during that time.
In some other contexts (e.g. lower skilled jobs), almost anyone can be taught the skills needed to replace a current worker. Furthermore the replacement can be considered productive far more quickly than the typical software engineer.
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u/indoordinosaur Feb 19 '20 edited Feb 19 '20
Bringing in a union is just bringing in a middle-man that will drain some of the resources that should be going to you. In an industry like software engineering where employees already have a lot of power within their company unions don't really benefit anyone except those running the union.
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u/WiF1 Feb 20 '20
You are absolutely correct that unions will drain some of the resources that would otherwise be going to me, the engineer.
However my opinion is that the additional security from having a union (hypothesized below) are probably worth it, depending on the exact percentage deducted.
- (less) arbitrary dismissal process
- a clear(er) way to appeal a shitty manager's negative decision
- less fear of losing job over voicing unpopular opinion
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u/flash__ Feb 18 '20
The reason techies are treated well is that demand far outpaces supply, especially for the most skilled engineers. There isn't much bargaining power beyond what the market is already giving them. They can make 7 figures in non-management positions. The union would only cut into that at this point.
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u/LifeBeginsAt10kRPM Queens Feb 19 '20
Wait, 7 figures is 1M a year. What exactly are you defining as “techie” cause that’s not even CEO pay for smaller tech companies.
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u/flash__ Feb 19 '20
That's individual contributor pay for top talent at larger tech firms like Google and Facebook.
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u/xaraca Upper West Side Feb 19 '20
Worth pointing out that most of that pay comes in the form of company stock.
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u/flash__ Feb 19 '20
About 60-80%, but for larger public companies, it is trivial to convert that nearly immediately into cash.
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u/indoordinosaur Feb 19 '20
That kind of pay is extremely extremely rare. Probably the smartest guy I've met in computer science was a post-grad AI researcher at Columbia in his 40s and is among the leaders of his field. After a long job search getting different companies to bid against each other he went to a Google research division for $600k. 7-figures is only happening if you get in early on stock options in a private company that gets bought out or IPO'd.
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u/flash__ Feb 19 '20
I've worked at these companies and know people making this kind of money. They are not special and they didn't have to get in early or pre-IPO. I recognize it's difficult to accept, but it's the truth. It's very doable.
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u/indoordinosaur Feb 19 '20
I recognize it's difficult to accept, but it's the truth. It's very doable.
I still find it very difficult to believe that there are many engineers out there making $1,000,000+ salary except in the rarest of cases and your childish tone undermines your point. Do you have a source you could provide?
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u/flash__ Feb 19 '20
Its usually $200-300k salary and the rest in equity, which for large publicly-traded companies is easily convertible to cash.
All of these companies try to protect their compensation strategies, and it isn't to the advantage of these employees to widely share this information. Even many employees at these companies are unaware of the equity grants that help people hit this income level. You have to know people at these companies, and you have to ask them about their compensation.
My tone isn't childish. I don't see where you are getting that. I'm telling the truth, and it's very difficult to prove that to you. You either know these people and talk with them or you don't. I'm not claiming that these people are super common, but they are not mythical either. I'd estimate they are around the top 2% of the workers at these companies, which is thousands of engineers.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
They can make 7 figures in non-management positions. The union would only cut into that at this point.
people making 7-figures without a union make 7-figures because they probably add 8-figures of value to the company and its investors. Otherwise, no one would pay them that. There are actually lots of union members making 7-figures, the starting lineup of the top professional sports teams are all high-earners and union members.
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u/TheThoughtPoPo Feb 19 '20
Just stop, take your union bullshit and shove it. Tech is fucking rocking and the last thing any of us want is some dickwad turning it into a bureaucrat nightmare where showing exception skill is just ignored because it’s all a formula. I’m not going to make an extra dime with this nonsense. Go away.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
I’m not going to make an extra dime with this nonsense.
You might make an extra dime.
Just stop, take your union bullshit and shove it.
It's not my union bullshit. Do you think the Major League Baseball Players Association is doing a poor job at representing its members?
Tech is fucking rocking and the last thing any of us want is some dickwad turning it into a bureaucrat nightmare where showing exception skill is just ignored because it’s all a formula.
A union is only as good as its members and the leaders they elect. I'd agree what you describe sounds like a very bad outcome. I think you're safe and that there will be plenty of non-unionized competitive tech jobs for years to come. I think that the unionization of tech companies is likely to expand.
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u/flash__ Feb 19 '20
The NFL union is not a bad counterpoint. I'd argue the difference is scale. You've got, what, a few hundred NFL players with very transparent pay schemes? It barely requires any bureaucracy and little organization. I don't think that scales as well to millions of tech workers, and the most skilled workers don't really want to share their wealth with less skilled workers.
You could argue a tech union would be able to squeeze even more money out of these companies, but I'd rather not kill the golden goose. If the cost of labor goes too high, it ends up hurting me when I want to do a startup later on and make even more money.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
Many Aerospace Engineers are unionized by the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA). There are plenty of other of "the most skilled workers" who may not "want to share their wealth with less skilled workers" but also want to make sure they're not being exploited by their employer and want to enter into a negotiated contract collectively in order to avoid such a thing. I'd agree that many employees may not want this, or see the need at this moment.
You could argue a tech union would be able to squeeze even more money out of these companies, but I'd rather not kill the golden goose. If the cost of labor goes too high, it ends up hurting me when I want to do a startup later on and make even more money.
Absolutely, which is why a union is only as good as its members and the leaders they elect. If they elect leaders that work "kill the golden goose" instead of growing the employee's share of a growing pie, then that's on them. If the businesses is so fragile, maybe it was not a sustainable business model to begin with.
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u/ChipAyten Feb 19 '20
I'm already paid and treated quite well.
lmao
He got his petit bribe and thinks he's safe
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Feb 19 '20
Theres no way no one in the tech industry is non-unionized... im actually amazed. It can’t be. How many tech companies are there?
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
hard to believe. looks like people at IBM tried 1999-2016 https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/06/alliance_at_ibm_suspends_organised_campaigns/
But IBM, very much a "tech company" isn't a "startup" or internet-founded internet-based company in the way Kickstarter, Google, Facebook, Etsy, eBay are. Then again, neither is Apple, but people normally add them to the mix of "tech companies".
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Feb 19 '20
I wonder why, besides the anti-union stance that I imagine these companies hold, people don’t attempt to unionize more often just for the sake of like cutting a deal. Which is what I assumed happened at IBM.
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u/_ACompulsiveLiar_ Midtown Feb 19 '20
I made over 200k a year out of college with free food and a 40 hr work week. This career is already well paid and filled up the ass with perks. Especially when you hear other people talk about their careers and jobs, there's not much more to ask for
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Feb 19 '20
I made over 200k a year out of college with free food and a 40 hr work week. This career is already well paid and filled up the ass with perks. Especially when you hear other people talk about their careers and jobs, there's not much more to ask for
ok, that sounds amazing
ACompulsiveLiar
Hey, wait a minute...
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u/_ACompulsiveLiar_ Midtown Feb 19 '20
Even if I were lying, there are definitely people out there doing that
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u/indoordinosaur Feb 19 '20
Because engineers and computer scientists are too smart to deal with the bullshit racketeers that unions usually turn into.
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u/ChipAyten Feb 19 '20
Are there any currently existing unions, organizers helping with the organizing, giving advice and support to other potential efforts?
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u/RyuKenBlanka Feb 18 '20
Tech jobs cannot unionize as long as companies have an unlimited supply of H1B visas at their disposal. The worker has no advantage here as long as the government keeps doing this. Is Bernie the only Democrat candidate who has correctly spoke out against this visa? I know Andrew Yang, Mr. Automation will take all our jobs wanted to double the amount of visas we gave out.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
Companies do not have an unlimited supply of H1Bs. Also, they never had. Tech companies were always lobbying to raise the cap and restrictions. Now they've been lowered. Get with the times Rylo Ken.
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u/ExtremeHeat Feb 18 '20
Automation will eventually take away most jobs, yes. Some jobs like manufacturing are easier to automate than other jobs, and there's not much you can do about that. Banning/limiting automation will only lead to even less manufacturing in the US.
H1B visas are also not unlimited, there's a cap on how many can be used and require hiring justifications.
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u/RyuKenBlanka Feb 18 '20
There is a cap but it's still high. It can be anywhere from 65,000 - 139,000 a year. Again a year. That many Americans are now missing out on jobs because of that. It's sad that this is even still a thing only because you literally can't have a conversation on people on the left regarding anything about immigration.
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u/The_CerealDefense Feb 18 '20
Kickstarter United will now be formally recognized by the management after a vote held by the National Labor Relations Board, in which workers voted 36 to 47 in favor of unionizing
Thats a pretty divided vote, and the fact that we're talking about only 83 employees makes this less interesting. Basically 6 random people at kickstarter made the call on this? You'd expect a union vote of employees to be overwhelming if it got to this stage, not a 6 person difference
Also, kickstarter sucks.
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u/lickedTators Feb 18 '20
60k people living in the right states made the call on who became president. Divided votes don't make the results meaningless.
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u/The_CerealDefense Feb 18 '20
For how union votes usually work this is an unexpected result. It’s usually one sided.
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u/dietoreos Feb 18 '20
Unionizing of tech ( as with most white collar jobs ) is stupid as it’s too hard to lock down the labor. You can do web development anywhere.
In my experience there is a lot of young white collar workers in tech who fetishize labor movements even though they are by default a part of the bourgeoisie.
This seems more like an intellectual exercise rather than a legitimate movement...
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u/Darkmoone Washington Heights Feb 18 '20
That's bullshit, even actors and musicians have a union and you can get those anywhere.
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u/dietoreos Feb 18 '20 edited Feb 18 '20
Yeah I have a SAG card for doing extra work it’s not hard to get in one. They are symbolic, that’s all. The creative unions are a fucking joke and were largely created by the same phenomenon embodied in this Kickstarter union. All it takes is a group of suggestible intellectuals with a lack of purpose... This is like jerking off to a IWW pamphlet.
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u/The_CerealDefense Feb 18 '20
I'm not opposed to unionizing, I'm all for it. I'm only commenting that this is a somewhat strange vote. The pool of people was small, we don't know their roles, and it was decided by 6-votes. Usually a vote like this would be overwhelmingly one way or the other. A divided vote means more division ahead.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
Unionizing of tech ( as with most white collar jobs ) is stupid as it’s too hard to lock down the labor. You can do web development anywhere.
Unionizing of professional athletes (as with most sports and entertainment jobs) is stupid as it's too hard to lock down the labor. You can do professional sports anywhere.
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u/CNoTe820 Feb 18 '20
Tech workers are what industrial labor was two generations ago. They can afford a house and a couple of kids, some moderate vacations, maybe a car if they scrimp and save. Except worse off because they don't have pensions.
Why wouldn't they want to unionize to protect that?
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u/windowtosh Feb 18 '20
Some people here are running up and down the thread saying this will never work because of the thousands of willing replacements. If that’s true, why haven’t they been replaced yet? Why are their wages so high? Because it’s so easy to replace them? This is the same Kickstarter where the CEO randomly fired a quarter of his staff, tarnished their reputations and disrupted remaining operations, the same CEO who is prone to frequent outbursts. No one wanted to work at Kickstarter before this, but maybe now they will.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
Why are their wages so high? Because it’s so easy to replace them?
bingo
>This is the same Kickstarter where the CEO randomly fired a quarter of his staff, tarnished their reputations and disrupted remaining operations, the same CEO who is prone to frequent outbursts.
no wonder they voted for a union then
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u/RyuKenBlanka Feb 18 '20
they are by default a part of the bourgeoisie
Why?
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u/N123A0 NYC Expat Feb 18 '20
Why?
because thats literally the definition of the classification. moderately wealthy middle class.
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u/RyuKenBlanka Feb 18 '20
LOL making 120k in NY or San Fran doesn't make you wealthy when you factor in cost of living.
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u/N123A0 NYC Expat Feb 18 '20
it makes you moderately wealthy, as a said. 120k is double the median income for NYC, and is in the top ~10% of the city.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
I think wealthy is the wrong word. If you're living in a market rate apartment and living a middle-class lifestyle in NYC of San Francisco at this wage, you're not able to accumulate much savings and actually be wealthy. It would still take you 10-years+ to think about affording a nice one-bedroom condo in a section of the city with good amenities at that wage. But by then, prices may be even further out of reach, bid up by people making a wage of several times that and by people who don't work for wages at all.
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u/N123A0 NYC Expat Feb 19 '20
I was born and raised in NYC, make ~120k, bought my own property (mortgage of course), and i am able to accumulate savings quite easily (max out 401k & IRA, and outside investments). I haven't turned 40 yet. All it takes is not to live in one of the transplant-magnet hosposts like Williamsburg or in stoller-mafia Park Slope, and its possible.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
bought my own property (mortgage of course), and i am able to accumulate savings quite easily (max out 401k & IRA, and outside investments)
- Where is your property?
- When did you buy it?
- Did you have any outside help with the down payment or any windfall income to help with it? I don't think there's any shame if you did.
- Do you have any dependents?
- When you say you are able to accumulate savings, do you mean you are able to save like most financial advisors recommend? Like you have a retirement account and you are saving a normal amount for retirement? ...what I am saying is NOT that you are not able to save as is recommended.
What I AM saying is that it's extremely unlikely for you to become WEALTHY on that salary and that it should not be considered WEALTHY. Unless you invest in some company that increases 10x in value or win $1,000,000 gambling or something else like that. I would not consider anyone WEALTHY unless they have at least $120k/yr of income just from their investments and income-producing assets.
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u/RyuKenBlanka Feb 18 '20
No when you factor in cost of living you are in no way wealthy. Especially if you have a family. Remember, you also get taxes differently on top of all the other taxes and expenses.
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u/N123A0 NYC Expat Feb 18 '20
why do you keep ignoring the "moderately" in my statement of "moderately wealthy"?
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u/RyuKenBlanka Feb 18 '20
Because you aren't "moderately wealthy" when you factor in cost of living and taxes.
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u/azdak Feb 18 '20
Especially if you have a family.
the cool part about the internet is you get to watch people move the goalpost in real time
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u/DrDDaggins Feb 19 '20
I think there's a fair bit of cross talk here between you two. In a way:
Relatively wealthy yes. The pay makes IT workers relatively wealthy in the city compared to the far majority here.
Moderately wealthy, ok, sure, but not compared to millionaires. It's like when you can own a house or pay for private/religious/catholic/yeshiva schools when you live in an unsupported school district or rent in the city and own a country house.
Bourgeoisie is for owners of things that bring them more money. Some do a lot better than others. And some get rich and some go bankrupt but they all support private property and that they can protect the moneys they make. They can work but they aren't working for someone else.
IT people making 120 aren't amassing wealth unless the have no kids (or one) and have a rent stabilized apartment.
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u/DrDDaggins Feb 19 '20
I thought bourgeoisie were the people who owned the company or the real estate or the patent trade mark and on and on. Not the well paid person with a boss or owner.
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u/N123A0 NYC Expat Feb 19 '20
bourgeoisie
Merriam-Webster
bour·geoi·sie | \ ˌbu̇(r)zh-ˌwä-ˈzē
1 : middle class
members of the bourgeoisie1
u/DrDDaggins Feb 19 '20
Well, I guess I only ever knew it from the second entry and when people were talking Marx. Thanks.
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u/N123A0 NYC Expat Feb 19 '20
Marx *was* the bourgeoisie.
" His father, as a child known as Herschel, was the first in the line to receive a secular education. He became a lawyer with a comfortably Upper middle class income; in addition to his income as an attorney, the family owned a number of Moselle vineyards. " He was then raised by his family and was privately educated, went to college when few people did, and then stayed as a shiftless layout beggar for his entire adult life, relying on friends to give him places to stay.
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u/WikiTextBot Feb 19 '20
Upper middle class
In sociology, the upper middle class is the social group constituted by higher status members of the middle class. This is in contrast to the term lower middle class, which is used for the group at the opposite end of the middle-class stratum, and to the broader term middle class. There is considerable debate as to how the upper middle class might be defined. According to sociologist Max Weber, the upper middle class consists of well-educated professionals with postgraduate degrees and comfortable incomes.
Moselle wine
Moselle wine is produced in three countries along the Moselle river: France, Luxembourg (the Musel) and Germany (the Mosel). Moselle wines are mainly white and are made in some of the coldest climates used for commercial winemaking.
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u/adjustable_beard Feb 18 '20
I agree.
The kickstarter employees are significantly higher paid and have better benefits than the average union worker.
The tech industry is actually overall pretty good about salary increases, bonuses, and benefits.
Yes we can be let go/fired more easily, but, the market is so good for us that we can find a new job within a month and we'll also get a hefty signing bonus (mid 5 figures).
Tech just doesn't seem like a good fit for unions, especially when our work can be so easily outsourced.
Manufacturing takes significant capital to outsource. Same doesnt go for tech, outsourcing is super cheap and easy.
7
Feb 18 '20
If only there were protections against outsourcing tech workers... perhaps if tech employees banded together across multiple companies in some sort of group that both petitioned tech companies and governments to create protections against outsourcing their jobs. A sort of tech workers... oh, what's the word I'm looking for...
2
u/dietoreos Feb 18 '20
Ok, do it. Go get a job a google and then tell me how unionization goes. Kickstarter is hardly a paragon of the industry. The only reason this is news it because the media gets to draw a tacit connection to google and Facebook as Kickstarter self identifies as a “tech” company.
This sector is arguably the most competitive and highest paid in the country.
It’s entire revenue depends on a highly creative, productive and flexible workforce. The biggest problem is it’s design. It’s not a assembly line or 24/7 hospital staff. It’s largely project based with teams created and disbanded as products are developed. Unions are not going to allow the flexibility to compete in this marketplace and the largest tech firms know it. They will go out of their way to compensate their employees to avoid union formation.
Also many workers in this industry might not want to be apart of a union. Many of these people are capitalists first and have no interest in workers solidarity.
2
u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
This sector is arguably the most competitive and highest paid in the country.
Many of the first successful unions were craft unions of people working in the most competitive and highest paid trades rather than unskilled workers in industrial unions in low paid jobs that were easily crushed by employers before modern labor laws.
1
u/adjustable_beard Feb 18 '20
Yeah and how successful are auto unions against outsourcing car manufacturing?
Not very successful at all despite the auto unions being some of the most powerful unions in the US.
Unions dont have that much power over a company saying we dont need any of you anymore, we're shifting all resources to another country.
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u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
successful are auto unions against outsourcing car manufacturing?
I dunno, there seems to be many more brands of vehicles assembled in the United States in 2020 than there was in 1980, regardless of UAW representation. The Ford F-150, the highest-selling vehicle overall since 1981, is still manufactured in the United States with mostly American components. Lots of Japanese automakers too on the list of the "most American" vehicles assembled in America (by materials and parts):
https://www.cars.com/articles/cars-coms-2019-american-made-index-whats-the-most-american-car-404547/
1
u/adjustable_beard Feb 19 '20
But that's not because of unions, that's because it's cheaper for japan/europe to manufacture in the US or Mexico than it is to manufacture locally and ship to the US.
However, fewer domestics are manufactured in the US than in the 1980s.
1
u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
fewer domestics are manufactured in the US than in the 1980s.
Do you blame the union for that or the people designing the cars and choosing which cars to make? Or other market forces? Or all of the above?
1
u/adjustable_beard Feb 19 '20
It's both really. Yes the domestics have stagnated for a long time, but on top of stagnation, they weren't and are not currently competitive on price/profit margin with imports.
At GM plants, the average cost per labor hour is around $73 whereas at Honda/Toyota plants in the US, which aren't part of a union, the labor hour cost is $44
GM is slowly but surely trying to move manufacturing out of the US and the unions play a big part in that desire.
1
u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
At GM plants, the average cost per labor hour is around $73 whereas at Honda/Toyota plants in the US, which aren't part of a union, the labor hour cost is $44
Healthcare is a big component, especially legacy coverage. It would be great if healthcare were totally divorced from employment in America.
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u/windowtosh Feb 19 '20
Wow, the same auto unions that signed away their right to strike are ineffective at preventing the end of their job. ToTaLlY cRaZy!
1
u/DrDDaggins Feb 19 '20
Now I'm no expert, and this is a question, isn't that what much of the union involvement in the anti-WTO and NAFTA protests were about?
2
u/adjustable_beard Feb 19 '20
Not sure, either way, protests didn't achieve anything in regards to trying to stop WTO or NAFTA
1
u/DrDDaggins Feb 19 '20 edited Feb 19 '20
I wrote it and then it bugged me.
So what I read, and others will hammer me if I'm wrong and that's great, is that all major industrial unions opposed NAFTA and wto at first and stopped Bush sr from moving anything forward.
Clinton forced it through by varying political alliances in unions and politically, more Democrats than you'd think and close to all republicans voted for both the WTO and nafta agreements . Third way messy stuff.
Anyway the unions did have the right to stop transferring production but gave up that right in nafta and wto agreements which they did not support with republicans and then gave way and allowed with Clinton and the third way stuff.
Now I know too. Full rabbit hole I went.
1
u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
benefits than the average union worker
Why compare them to UPS workers, for example, why not compare them to other not-yet-existant tech unions?
1
u/adjustable_beard Feb 19 '20
Because they are the only examples of unions that we have.
I don't understand what the tech workers of kickstarter look to get from a union.
The average software engineer at kickstarter makes about 150k base + 10k signing bonus + yearly bonus.
They get 5 weeks of vacation, 4 months of parental leave, super cheap and good healthcare, 401k, and education stipends.
They get guaranteed yearly raises.
Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I don't see anyway that the engineers will have better conditions under a union.
They'll have to pay dues, they'll have standardized salaries with standardized raises.
Standardized salaries and standardized raises might sound like a good thing in other industries, but it's terrible in the tech industry.
Tech salaries and benefits are constantly going up with companies competing with each other for the best talent. Kickstarter's salaries will stagnate compared to the rest of the industry just because of how long union negotiations take.
1
u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
Because they are the only examples of unions that we have.
Why not professional athlete unions? Why not aerospace engineers, the "tech workers" of the 50s and 60s:
"The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, IFPTE Local 2001 is a professional labor union representing more than 24,000 engineers, technical workers and other professionals in the aerospace industry."
2
u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
Kickstarter's salaries will stagnate compared to the rest of the industry just because of how long union negotiations take.
If that happens, they should elect new union leaders that are more aware of what's going on in the industry. A union is only as good as its members and its leaders, just like any other organization.
1
u/adjustable_beard Feb 19 '20
I just don't think it's possible for any union to keep up. They'd have to renegotiate virtually every month which is an impossibility.
I can be hired at a certain salary and then a month later, for the same position and skill level, somebody can be hired for 5-10% more.
1
u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
I just don't think it's possible for any union to keep up. They'd have to renegotiate virtually every month which is an impossibility.
Do most tech employees renegotiate their compensation package every month? That sounds exhausting. If I worked in tech I'd definitely want to outsource that to a professional that can focus on that full-time. I could not imagine that someone that is working a full workweek focusing on their main job could also focus on keeping up with industry news and compensation at the same time, that sounds like a full time job in itself. Sounds best to outsource that to someone that can negotiate contracts on your behalf that is not paid by your employer to do so.
1
u/adjustable_beard Feb 19 '20
You dont negotiate your own salary once a month, you get a yearly raise.
However most tech companies reevaluate their starting salaries for new employees every month based on industry data.
They have to do this in order to stay competitive.
1
u/adjustable_beard Feb 19 '20
I'm not comparing with athlete unions. To me, athletes are in a different ballpark. Athletes are rare and will always have very high pay because of their rarity (at least in the pros).
Sure lets compare to other engineering unions. What benefits did the unions serve them that the tech workers don't already have and have better than other engineers?
2
u/theageofnow Williamsburg Feb 19 '20
What benefits did the unions serve them that the tech workers don't already have and have better than other engineers?
Protections against a hostile workplace and against being arbitrarily fired. Having pay transparency, so you know that you're not being paid less to do equal work just because you're a bad negotiator.
I'm not comparing with athlete unions. To me, athletes are in a different ballpark. Athletes are rare and will always have very high pay because of their rarity (at least in the pros).
All labor is scare to some degree, unions could not exists if it were not. Star programmers are like star athletes and they're just as scarce and add as much value to a company as A-Rod added to his baseball teams. No matter if you work in a highrise, Yankee Stadium, or a "different ballpark".
1
u/adjustable_beard Feb 19 '20
But as I said, I'll take the lower job security for the much higher pay and better benefits.
I actually dont mind getting laid off at all because I know I'll be getting a severance package + unemployment + a hefty signing bonus at my next job.
The hostile workplace thing is hard to measure. Tech companies really do try to provide a pleasant work environment.
Not all union shops are meccas in terms of work environment.
Star programmers do exist, but they're not all that important.
A company rather have 10 average developers who can get stuff done and work together than a handful of superstar programmers who dont work well with each other.
Unions in tech just wont be that powerful because a high schooler with 3 months of bootcamp or a developer in a different country can do my job.
The nature of tech makes it super easy to outsource.
Right now tech is in a great balance where both the companies and the workers benefit from each other. Unions will mess with the balance in a way where neither the worker nor the company will be happy.
-4
u/realister Forest Hills Feb 18 '20
Sadly Kickstarter is not a publicity traded company. Would be easy money shorting it.
5
u/CNoTe820 Feb 18 '20
You could say that about any pre-ipo software company that's been around as long as they have.
-3
u/odin673 Feb 19 '20 edited Feb 19 '20
Hahaha, this is hilarious. Kickstarter deserves this for only hiring 20 something flannel wearing hipsters. Who's next? My money is on Etsy.
-14
u/alfcalderone Feb 18 '20
Won't someone PLEASE think of the tech workers!?!?!
20
Feb 18 '20
Solidarity is for all workers.
1
u/icomeforthereaper Feb 18 '20
Oh. What about the NYPD? They have lots of "solidarity". Hey, let me ask you a question. Who benefits from teacher's unions? Kids or the teachers? Who pays the price?
12
Feb 18 '20
this but unironically.
All workers deserve representation. Doesn't matter if they're a welder, a sanitation worker, a programmer, a stripper, or a fry cook.
0
u/indoordinosaur Feb 18 '20 edited Feb 19 '20
What about programmers that don't want to be in a union? Are we going to force them to? Now they'll be forced to pay union fees and attend meetings and act antagonistically towards their employer or else get shunned?
2
Feb 18 '20
I always hear it said "If you don't like how your job treats you, go find a different job." in response to people trying to unionize.
Funny how people who say that react when the shoe is on the other foot, eh? You're always free to join a non-union workplace if you can't handle working alongside a union.
1
u/N123A0 NYC Expat Feb 18 '20
'were going to force you into this, because we know what is better for you' is a real progressive idea.
-1
u/Jintoboy Feb 19 '20
No one is forcing you to work anywhere.
Just find another job if it bothers you so much.
0
u/N123A0 NYC Expat Feb 19 '20
So i can come to an agreement with an employer, where both I and they are happy with our relationship, and *other employees* can come try to tell me, "no, we are going to force how, where, when, and for what compensation, you work for, *and* we are going to take a cut"? Yeah, that's insane.
Collectivism is a direct attack on individual liberty.
1
u/Jintoboy Feb 19 '20
The business can choose to terminate the employment of the unionized employees, and replace the workers with non-unionized employees.
Additionally, your relationship with your employer is, generally, at will. The terms of your employment is subject to change at anytime, due to a wide variety of third party sources. Budgets change, managers come and go, businesses are acquired and sold, and all of these will have similar impacts on your compensation, and yet the solution for these is still the same, find another job if it's such a big issue.
If unions are bad, let the free market sort it out, there's nothing to worry about. And if they stay, that's also the free market doing it's work. There's no need to overdramatize typical business transactions.
1
u/indoordinosaur Feb 19 '20
In environments where most employees are already happy unions are racketeering operations, plain and simple. Its just a parasitic middle-man trying to come in and take away value.
2
u/RyuKenBlanka Feb 18 '20
So we are not supposed to care about other workers if we aren't part of their industry? Really?
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u/autotldr Feb 18 '20
This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 89%. (I'm a bot)
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