[pmikesell]

I worry that tech workers may be under-informed about what a union may mean. A union can be in many ways similar to a corporation with its own power structure and demands.

Just 4 examples from my time in a union shop:

  1) Pay raise and promotion via seniority only

  2) Being warned by the shop steward that I was "working too fast"

  3) Heavy coercion to contribute to specific political candidates

  4) Going on strike for reasons I didn't agree with

Maybe a tech union would turn out better somehow. I for one would not want to go back to that situation.

[Volundr]

A union is a beast unto itself, and much like companies, unions vary a great deal between themselves and your specific experiences don't generalize across all unions, anymore than my experience working for a CPG company generalizes across the industry.

To counter your anecdote, my mother spent years working under a telecom union when I was younger and never had any such issues. Employees sure were grateful however to have someone on their side when it came time to negotiating severance around lay-offs.

[fzeroracer]

As a thought experiment though: Why do we allow corporations to exist then, if we actively oppose unions for behaving in the same way as corporations?

You draw a straight parallel between union behavior and corporate behavior. By that same argument then, I will argue that if unions are bad, corporations are bad for the same reason and corporations should be abolished.

[unreal37]

Unions have their own goals that are more than just "the interests of Kickstarter employees". So in fact, there will be times when issues are important to Kickstarter employees but are not important to their union. Or important to the union but not very many employees. And then what?

[theamk]

I thought the whole point of unions was to represent interests of employees? If the Kickstarter employees' issues are not important to their union, why would they unionize?

[finnthehuman]

>Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":

>First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

>Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

>The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

[evgen]

The Kickstarter employees can create a “Union of Kickstarter Employees” and then try to build the negotiating and benefits infrastructure themselves, or they can join a much larger union and get the benefits of shared infrastructure. The benefit of the former is that it will be hyper-focussed on the needs of that group but it will cost more and probably be a lot less effective. A larger union costs each employee less and gives them a lot more “muscle” when it becomes necessary to negotiate but the downside is that they are one small group among many when it comes to setting overall policy or goals.

Think of a union as a business whose job is to protect employees and provide them with some benefits. Some unions will be giants with horrible customer service and corporate goals that seem to be more about self-perpetuation and some unions will be smaller and more focussed on the needs of a specific industry. Each type serves different needs.

[parsimo2010]

I think that people need to think about the distinctions between a white-collar union and a blue-collar union.

A blue-collar union, like the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), can essentially treat each person as known amount of performance and bargain as such. There is relatively little difference between trained employees on a production line. So the UAW can bargain for things like promotion by seniority only, which provides a reasonable balance to keep managers from playing favorites. There's not a whole lot you can do to set yourself apart when you are stamping out door panels and robots do the welding for you, so promotion on merit isn't as important. Take a look at the tone of this UAW web page and how it pitches union membership as a way to avoid bad things: https://uaw.org/organize/no-union-no-rights/

For white-collar unions, such as the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), there often is a demonstrable difference in the quality of work that trained employees do, so they don't want to get rid of merit based consideration, but they do want to ensure that their employees are treated fairly. Take a look at the tone of this SPEEA web page and how it pitches union membership as a way to achieve more good things: http://www.speea.org/Join_Our_Union!/Benefits_of_SPEEA.html

The Kickstarter union shouldn't model themselves after the UAW, but more like SPEEA. I don't know what the employees are proposing, but I fear that a lot of people assume that the Kickstarter employees are trying to start a mafia within the organization that controls what all the employees can do. That's probably not the case, they should make sure that two people with the same merit are given the same fair shakes. They shouldn't be telling people to code fewer lines per day because they don't want to give the company free labor.

Things like requiring workers to support certain political candidates is what makes some people dislike unions. It's one thing for a union to endorse a candidate because they support policies favorable to union workers, it's another thing to coerce your employees to vote a certain way.

Things like striking even if you don't agree with them however, is a good part of the union and is how it gains its bargaining power. If people were free to just pick and choose the issues that they supported, then there wouldn't be a point of a union. Assuming the union is not corrupt, you should strike in solidarity with your other union members. If you show support for them today even if you don't necessarily agree, they might show support for you tomorrow even if they don't necessarily agree.

[derekp7]

What about unions that are more like a trade guild, which sets standards for its members which make dealing with a union member more of a known quantity than hiring a random person off the street? I'm thinking of things like a union electrician or plumber.

This could serve to minimize the need for interview gimmicks, since the union itself would enforce standards through its own certification process.

[pmiller2]

Seems like that just shifts the song and dance from the interview process to the certification process.

[hatfortguy]

Yep. And that's exactly where it should be. It's insane that we have to prove the same things at every interview when certification already proves these things.

If all you want is a plumber with a certain skill set, then hire a union plumber with certification.

[SomeOtherThrow]

Do you have a reason to think this is endemic? Have you ever talked to people who like their union? You sound like a bitter old man.