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Series DD Funding posted:I believe I've responded to all your points. In fact, you were the one who gave a one-line non-response at http://forums.somethingawful.com/newreply.php?action=newreply&postid=449101610#post449099678 Solkanar512 posted:Wait, so you seriously don't understand why a group of employees working together under a federally recognized system are able to use that leverage towards better wages, benefits and labor protections? This is what you call a one line response? Anyone reading this can see that it's more substantial than that, and even afterwards you still ignore or dismiss the benefits of collective bargaining over the individual, all with no evidence to back that up either! This is getting loving stupid. Here is your original post: Series DD Funding posted:A model developed in the 19th century doesn't really work for jobs that wouldn't exist for decades hence In response to this: Eskaton posted:Well, if they're okay with it, is it really a problem? All you need to do is back up your statement with some form of a convincing argument. You haven't yet and in the process of arguing with me you have ignored various examples of unions here and abroad, the usefulness of federal legal protection, the ability for plenty of unions to deal with members of extreme variance in ability, function and pay and on and on and on. No more moving the goal posts, no more half responses. Give an actual argument to your original point.
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Aug 18, 2015 04:37
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The tech industry has always had a workholic focused culture even back in the day. It's part of the whole kill yourself for the company to show that you have real "passion" for the job. I've heard pretty bad things about working for bay area companies like Apple or Tesla.
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Aug 18, 2015 04:51
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Solkanar512 posted:This is what you call a one line response? Anyone reading this can see that it's more substantial than that, and even afterwards you still ignore or dismiss the benefits of collective bargaining over the individual, all with no evidence to back that up either! Appealing to "isn't it obvious" isn't even substantial by d&d standards quote:All you need to do is back up your statement with some form of a convincing argument. You haven't yet and in the process of arguing with me you have ignored various examples of unions here and abroad, the usefulness of federal legal protection, the ability for plenty of unions to deal with members of extreme variance in ability, function and pay and on and on and on. Which examples? I pointed out how unions like SAG here work, and that American tech salaries are generally higher than the rest of the world's. "Federal legal protection" is not a magic spell Unions "deal with" the variance by not dealing with it. They set minimum salaries, not general salaries for all the employees. There would be just as many "smoke-filled rooms" as before
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Aug 18, 2015 04:53
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Series DD Funding posted:Appealing to "isn't it obvious" isn't even substantial by d&d standards One of the big problem with American unions is precisely that they are filled with smoke filled backroom deals done by the senior management that usually involves screwing over newer guys so the older members gets better benefits
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Aug 18, 2015 04:55
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etalian posted:I've heard pretty bad things about working for bay area companies like Apple or Tesla. For Apple, at least, it probably depends on the project and team and whether you're coming up on a release. It's only anecdotal, but I've had many good weeks/weekends, but also the occasional bad week/weekend. I could see Tesla being worse, because my understanding is that SpaceX suffers from a similar atmosphere to Amazon (though I haven't heard of stack ranking there)
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Aug 18, 2015 05:01
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Probably doesn't help that companies like Tesla are run by weirdos who can't understand why a employee would want good work life balance and consider vacation to be distractions from the glory of work.
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Aug 18, 2015 05:08
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etalian posted:Probably doesn't help that companies like Tesla are run by weirdos who can't understand why a employee would want good work life balance and consider vacation to be distractions from the glory of work. Vacation, seeing the birth of your child, stuff like that.
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Aug 18, 2015 05:11
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computer parts posted:Vacation, seeing the birth of your child, stuff like that. Apple has a new benefit plan which allows female employees to freeze their eggs for free during their younger years. Please don't let a family distract from work!
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Aug 18, 2015 05:12
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blowfish posted:That's because it essentially is. You are not applying for a job, but to become one of a bunch of nerd friends obsessed with webcomics, and even get paid enough to not starve. It's quite possible they believe their own poo poo about making your work environment better rather than paying you cash, because you are supposed to spend all day with your fellow webcomic obsessed nerd friends rather than provide a service in exchange for money. I'm imagining a grown man having to feign interest in a webcomic about video games in order to provide sustenance for himself and I'm just getting depressed
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Aug 18, 2015 05:13
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blowfish posted:That's because it essentially is. You are not applying for a job, but to become one of a bunch of nerd friends obsessed with webcomics, and even get paid enough to not starve. It's quite possible they believe their own poo poo about making your work environment better rather than paying you cash, because you are supposed to spend all day with your fellow webcomic obsessed nerd friends rather than provide a service in exchange for money. But given the current tech job market only somebody who is genuinely weird enough to like webcomics more than $$$ would apply anyway
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Aug 18, 2015 05:14
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The thing is that people who work at SpaceX and Tesla have other options. There are plenty of other engineering firms that are much more relaxed. It's some serious first world problems if you think Silicon Valley has bad labor practices.
Eskaton fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 05:14
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I don't get this "a structure for 19th century work can't handle the 21st century workplace" or whatever. We're using the same spoken language (with some updates) since then, and many other social and technological innovations will probably not be majorly disrupted by the magic of putting raspberry pis on things. Why does this somehow happen to apply to workplace justice? I mean, I know the real why, but I don't follow that logic. Or has nobody yet disrupted the spoken-language market?
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Aug 18, 2015 05:23
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Nessus posted:I don't get this "a structure for 19th century work can't handle the 21st century workplace" or whatever. We're using the same spoken language (with some updates) since then, and many other social and technological innovations will probably not be majorly disrupted by the magic of putting raspberry pis on things. Why does this somehow happen to apply to workplace justice? Technological change, especially labor saving ones, and globalization are two examples of things which has marked the decline of American unions since the 1970s
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Aug 18, 2015 05:29
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Typo posted:Technological change, especially labor saving ones, and globalization are two examples of things which has marked the decline of American unions since the 1970s
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Aug 18, 2015 05:31
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Nessus posted:Right, I don't get the ontological argument here though. Obviously unions have declined, but in other countries they have not, which suggests that they have not somehow become in and of themselves obsolete in the face of a computer. The ones that unions haven't seen decline are Germany and....someone mentioned Norway. Germany is probably the better example (no oil to fund everything) and it's because the country is disproportionately focused on manufacturing and structures their society around it. The point is that the US doesn't seem to be an unique in this, strong unions in the 21st century are the exception rather than the rule.
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Aug 18, 2015 05:36
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Eskaton posted:The thing is that people who work at SpaceX and Tesla have other options. There are plenty of other engineering firms that are much more relaxed. It's some serious first world problems if you think Silicon Valley has bad labor practices. So barely four pages in and we've arrived at "you can't reasonably agitate for better working conditions because there are starving children in China" That was fast
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Aug 18, 2015 05:51
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icantfindaname posted:So barely four pages in and we've arrived at "you can't reasonably agitate for better working conditions because there are starving children in China" That was fast We're talking about 4 companies in an entire industry. Where the median worker earns almost a six figure salary. I mean if SpaceX is off the table, there's only Boeing, NASA, all the auto companies and countless smaller places to go. Eskaton fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 05:55
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icantfindaname posted:So barely four pages in and we've arrived at "you can't reasonably agitate for better working conditions because there are starving children in China" That was fast It's not that you can't, it's that when kids in their early-mid 20s are getting paid 70k-120k annually they are a lot less likely to complain then factory workers barely having enough to eat back in the 1880s
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Aug 18, 2015 05:58
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icantfindaname posted:So barely four pages in and we've arrived at "you can't reasonably agitate for better working conditions because there are starving children in China" That was fast From the article it sounds like marketing, sales, merchandising, vendor management, project management and so forth on the business side have been facing terrible working conditions at least as much as the programmers. All of them are far better off than the guys working in the warehouses without any air conditioning. The programmers would stand to benefit from forming a union and that's a perfectly legitimate reason for one but for 90% of Amazon's workers it wouldn't do a thing.
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Aug 18, 2015 06:27
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My favorite part of the article is how it has one paragraph about Amazon having ambulances parked outside of their factories to drag away people with heat stroke before going back to the true horror of joe hundred thousandaire at Amazon corporate being held to  unreasonable expectations.
Volkerball fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 06:33
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Cicero posted:I agree that the level of demand from top companies seems pretty crazy these days, but what do you mean speculation? Programmers at your company aren't a resource that you can sell off to another company at a profit. You can sell off contracts, no problem. HP is doing it right now. Apart from that, there is definitely a rush to retain top-tier talent. Call it whatever you like, but what it boils down to is speculating that hiring the next Woz will pay off in the long run, even if you have to hire a dozen geniuses to acquire the one savant. It's the manifestation of the search for the 10x programmer, the search for the 100x engineer. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 06:49
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Cicero posted:I agree that the level of demand from top companies seems pretty crazy these days, but what do you mean speculation? Programmers at your company aren't a resource that you can sell off to another company at a profit. There's probably some stupid bullshit in Silicon Valley involving this, startups, and some guys from Stanford or University of California. Job Truniht fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 07:05
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Paul MaudDib posted:You can sell off contracts, no problem. HP is doing it right now. Of course looking at his wiki page, he's also a Mason...
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Aug 18, 2015 07:14
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For context of this thread. is this discussion specifically going to be an attack on Amazon or an attack on the tech industry in general? Amazon is definitely not the only "tech" company that does this poo poo.
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Aug 18, 2015 07:18
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Nessus posted:Wozniak being the one that Jobs ripped off in the 70s, right? Yes Jobs ripped him off a number of times, didn't stop him from being very successful and getting insanely rich from Apple.
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Aug 18, 2015 07:33
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Nessus posted:I don't get this "a structure for 19th century work can't handle the 21st century workplace" or whatever. We're using the same spoken language (with some updates) since then, and many other social and technological innovations will probably not be majorly disrupted by the magic of putting raspberry pis on things. Why does this somehow happen to apply to workplace justice? I agree, we just need a disruptive technological take on the old alternative to trade unions - the state as the union that guarantees labor rights 
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Aug 18, 2015 12:25
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Series DD Funding posted:Appealing to "isn't it obvious" isn't even substantial by d&d standards It was an actual question that you still refuse to answer. Do you understand why working as a group provides more leverage for wages, benefits and working conditions than negotiating alone? Yes or no? quote:Which examples? I pointed out how unions like SAG here work, and that American tech salaries are generally higher than the rest of the world's. Solkanar512 posted:They would have protection against collusion in wages because wages wouldn't be determined inside some smoke filled room with consent from competitors, they would be bargained for and determined in the open during negotiations, which not only include wages, but exactly how those wages are determined. Since the criteria is concrete, you start attacking wage gap issues right away - in fact, this is one of the first things a union will do once the salary information is determined. It's quite easy to see if all of the female managers make less than the male managers and so on. See all that bolded text? Salaries don't mean poo poo if you can't ever leave work, are constantly sexually harassed or "managed out" on a whim of an abusive manager. Having that negotiated contract outlining how employers are to be treated and compensated means that the rules are applied in a fair and even handed manner - and when they aren't, there is a legally binding process to deal with it. quote:"Federal legal protection" is not a magic spell First off, it's a great magic spell against the wonders of "at-will employment". Secondly, you're moving the goal posts again. You first claimed that unions can't deal with high variance in productivity then when presented with a bunch of counter-examples ignored them because you're only thinking about salaries at the expense of other benefits, working conditions, safety, the ability to address grievances and general advocacy. Even then, you're ignoring that without those unions, owners/management would be keeping much, much more of the money. Actors used to have contracts with specific production houses. Football team owners make orders of magnitude more than the players do. And so on.
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Aug 18, 2015 14:43
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Job Truniht posted:For context of this thread. is this discussion specifically going to be an attack on Amazon or an attack on the tech industry in general? Amazon is definitely not the only "tech" company that does this poo poo. It seems like that's very much true. The NYT article just sparked discussion about it the most recently, but I remember there being other articles about shady practices at Google/Apple/etc. I'd be interested to know what other companies have been accused of doing and what they did to combat that (fire the people complaining, changing policies, etc.). I'm not necessarily interested in the unionizing discussion because, as was brought up earlier, most people working these hours in tech seem to want to rather than being forced to.
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Aug 18, 2015 15:12
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SquadronROE posted:It seems like that's very much true. The NYT article just sparked discussion about it the most recently, but I remember there being other articles about shady practices at Google/Apple/etc. I'd be interested to know what other companies have been accused of doing and what they did to combat that (fire the people complaining, changing policies, etc.). Was there something more than just the outright collusion/no cold-calling policy?
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Aug 18, 2015 16:22
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Solkanar512 posted:It was an actual question that you still refuse to answer. Do you understand why working as a group provides more leverage for wages, benefits and working conditions than negotiating alone? Yes or no? Yes, I understand it can quote:See all that bolded text? Salaries don't mean poo poo if you can't ever leave work, are constantly sexually harassed or "managed out" on a whim of an abusive manager. Having that negotiated contract outlining how employers are to be treated and compensated means that the rules are applied in a fair and even handed manner - and when they aren't, there is a legally binding process to deal with it. Clearly they do mean poo poo when so many new grads go for the high salaries the ballpit companies offer and pass up workplaces inhabited by semi-normal people. The only other part of that I haven't already responded to is sexual harassment, and for that I trust the courts a lot more than I trust any system tech workers would vote for quote:First off, it's a great magic spell against the wonders of "at-will employment". Secondly, you're moving the goal posts again. You first claimed that unions can't deal with high variance in productivity then when presented with a bunch of counter-examples ignored them because you're only thinking about salaries at the expense of other benefits, working conditions, safety, the ability to address grievances and general advocacy. Again, any working condition problems are for the most part self-imposed. What benefits can companies provide that aren't fungible with salary? Basically health insurance and a 401k, which essentially all developers already get!
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Aug 18, 2015 16:30
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Klaus88 posted:Reading articles like this, it amazes me that tech companies don't get firebombed every other week. Game Development cycles in general chew up and spit out IT workers.
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Aug 18, 2015 17:22
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Series DD Funding posted:Yes, I understand it can That's because those employees are easily exploited short-sighted idiots who need to be protected from themselves. Series DD Funding posted:Again, any working condition problems are for the most part self-imposed. What benefits can companies provide that aren't fungible with salary? Basically health insurance and a 401k, which essentially all developers already get! A workplace free of safety hazards, sexual harassment or bigotry. A healthy work environment that doesn't lead to health problems. Being treated as a human being instead of a disposable cog. You know, basic human decency that you seem to be dismissing out of hand as less important than money. A Shitty Reporter fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 17:34
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An Angry Bug posted:That's because those employees are easily exploited short-sighted idiots who need to be protected from themselves. What makes you better able to determine what someone wants than they are? I guess people should just change what they enjoy to better fit your political goals quote:A workplace free of safety hazards, sexual harassment or bigotry. A healthy work environment that doesn't lead to health problems. Being treated as a human being instead of a disposable cog. You know, basic human decency that you seem to be dismissing out of hand as less important than money. I didn't say that. I don't work in ballpit companies. But people who work there made their choice, and I wish them well
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Aug 18, 2015 18:05
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Paul MaudDib posted:You can sell off contracts, no problem. HP is doing it right now. An Angry Bug posted:That's because those employees are easily exploited short-sighted idiots who need to be protected from themselves. Amazon employees aren't children, thanks. If their working conditions suck, they'll learn their lesson and move on. Cicero fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 18:20
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An Angry Bug posted:That's because those employees are easily exploited short-sighted idiots who need to be protected from themselves. perhaps we need a vanguard startup to lead the mass of exploited software developers into the correct labor market organization
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Aug 18, 2015 18:21
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If those child laborers don't like their working conditions, they can leave. Now get back to work, no weekends!
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Aug 18, 2015 18:34
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Solkanar512 posted:See all that bolded text? Salaries don't mean poo poo if you can't ever leave work, are constantly sexually harassed or "managed out" on a whim of an abusive manager. Having that negotiated contract outlining how employers are to be treated and compensated means that the rules are applied in a fair and even handed manner - and when they aren't, there is a legally binding process to deal with it. 1) Most people in the tech industry, even on the west coast, gets to work between 9-10 and leaves between 5-6 2) Sexual harassment is an issue in the IT industry, but unions in the US have being pretty socially conservative, and have traditionally hated women and minorities because they competed with white male workers for jobs. I'm simply not sure if unions actually solve the problem.
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Aug 18, 2015 19:13
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Typo posted:1) Most people in the tech industry, even on the west coast, gets to work between 9-10 and leaves between 5-6
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Aug 18, 2015 19:20
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twodot posted:My experience is that this is true, but then a lot of people get home and log into their work computer remotely and are sending email at all hours. Concrete data would be good if you have it. With those parameters it's much closer to 72 hours a week.
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Aug 18, 2015 19:21
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CommieGIR posted:If those child laborers don't like their working conditions, they can leave. Amazon corporate workers probably aren't among the bottom 30 million of the country when it comes to workplace treatment. At least they get big checks out of the deal. Please don't unironically compare them to slave children, tia.
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Aug 18, 2015 19:29
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