13 ms·

Notes from November 28 Meetup of Bay Area Tech Solidarity

81 points by stablemap 10y ago

chrismealy 10y ago
Forming a union and joining the labor movement would be a start. Oh sure everybody hates unions, but there's not a progressive country in the world without a strong labor movement. Without labor you're left with narrow-minded plutocrats and unreliable technocrats to run everything.
- sidlls 10y ago
  Good luck with that. This industry has too many people with egos far bigger than their accomplishments justify, in my opinion. There is a tendency in this field for folks to believe tech is about as close to a meritocracy as it gets, and that unions or even a trade guild would just hold "the best" back.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    > There is a tendency in this field for folks to believe tech is about as close to a meritocracy as it gets, and that unions or even a trade guild would just hold "the best" back. You don't have to be arrogant about your own abilities to realize that promotion based on seniority would privilege longer-tenured workers over better, lesser-tenured workers. That doesn't just hurt the best workers -- it hurts anyone who is above the average. Promotion based on seniority is a common feature of union contracts, so it's a valid concern. Some people like seniority-based promotion because it can reduce discrimination in promotion decisions. For example, a woman could be promoted based on seniority even though her sexist boss might prefer a less-qualified, less-tenured male candidate. That would certainly be unfair, and seniority-based promotion could prevent that. However, the tech industry is currently mostly men, which means that any female employee who joins a large company will have at least a few decades' worth of men ahead of her in line for a promotion, no matter how good she is at her job. Seniority-based promotion would actually entrench gender diversity problems for at least 20 years, rather than solve them. The only way it would have positive effects vis a vis diversity would be to impose it on a workforce that is already diverse but has discriminatory managers.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - sidlls 10y ago
      Do you have evidence that seniority based promotion hurts above average workers? Do you have good reason to suspect that seniority based promotion is a likely enough feature of a union in this industry to warrant concern?
      - twblalock 10y ago
        Average is the break-even point. If you are average: Given that most people are average (because that's what average means), you aren't an outlier, so you wouldn't expect a faster or slower promotion timeline in a meritocratic system than in a seniority based system. After all, the majority of people more senior than you at any company are likely to be average too (because that's what average means), unless the company has an unusual distribution of employee skill across the tenure spectrum. In a meritocratic system, you are still average, and you would still have an average promotion timeline. If you are average, it doesn't much matter what system you have. If you are above average: Your talent will be recognized, and you will be promoted faster than most of your peers in a meritocratic system. In a seniority-based system, people who are not as good as you will be promoted before you because they have worked at the company longer. This hurts you, and it hurts the company, because both could do better under a meritocracy. You should prefer a meritocratic system over a seniority-based system. If you are below average: In a meritocratic system, you would be promoted as a last resort, when better people are not available. In a seniority-based system, you will be promoted just because you stuck around, even if you suck. You should prefer a seniority-based system over a meritocratic system. If you are a worker at any level, and you improve your job skills and your value to the company, that will increase your promotion prospects in a meritocratic system, but not change them in any way in a seniority-based system. So why would anyone try to improve or work hard in a seniority-based system?
        sidlls 10y ago
        I have to object: you've provided a description of how you think seniority based systems work, but no evidence to support your contention that it is, in fact, the way they do.
  - chrismealy 10y ago
    True, but if professional athletes and Hollywood actors can be in unions so can hot shot web devs. Plenty of meritocracy (ugh I hate that word) in those fields.
- tptacek 10y ago
  It's easy to forget that there are collective action goals that go beyond better wages and more benefits. If you believe that corporations exert disproportionate control over policy in the US, collective action is a way to make that control more responsive to citizens.
  - chrismealy 10y ago
    Yes! IIRC unions provide campaign funding roughly equivalent to the (very right wing) Chamber of Commerce. Unions support liberal think tanks, which develop progressive policies and support the next generation of progressive journalists and policy analysts. More than money, they provide coordination. It's easy for 100 rich dudes to get together and drive policy. It's hard for 200 million working people. That's what a labor movement is for.
    - brightball 10y ago
      Remember that time labor unions lobbied for tax incentives to encourage employer provided health insurance that resulted in the disaster of a system we have today?
      - avmich 10y ago
        Are you sure the employer provided health insurance is a notable cause of the disaster of the current system?
        brightball 10y ago
        Not letting individuals deduct it directly created the system that removed health insurance from the consumer market, which removed health care from the market, which created the meteoric rise in costs. Anytime people are removed from the cost of a thing, the price goes up. Housing, education, healthcare. Even buying groceries people spend more than twice as much with a credit card vs cash.
        10y ago
- whybroke 10y ago
  If a union eventually grows out of this, fine. If a lobbyist or voting block emerges, that's fine too. But in the short term, I suggest the focus be on preserving the industry from the large number of threats it now faces via cooperation from all roles in the industry. Once a habit of cooperation emerges, further future cooperation among members would be very likely.
susan_hall 10y ago
From the Notes, this is a very sad story: "I am Muslim, born in Massachusetts. I love my faith. Muslims in the US are very scared. Both my mom and wife wear the hijab, so I'm always worried they'll be attacked in the street. Even in the Bay Area it's a concern. Of course I encourage them to continue; it's important not to be affected. A few years ago, my mom and sister were at a farmers' market in Boston, what seems like a liberal setting. A big guy ran up and called them terrorists, started spitting at them. My 60 year old mom and 20 year old sister were really intimidated. My sister cried for the rest of the day. People stood by and watched. I give them the benefit of the doubt; they were taken off guard. We have to be aware of our surroundings and be ready to act. It takes mental preparation, so you don't end up reacting like a deer in the headlights." I am worried what happens to a diverse country, such as the USA, when it elects a leadership that is vocally anti-immigrant. We are about to find out. All of us need to do what we can to minimize the kind of bigotry that might escalate under anti-immigrant leadership.
- rubicon33 10y ago
  It's a potentially very scary time for minorities. The president sets the tone of the country through their actions. A president being anti-immigrant could bring that same quality out in others...
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    That's already happening. I've witnessed people trying to intimidate minority folk here in the East Bay, yelling 'you're going over the wall!' unprovoked at people on the street for example.
- postcarnival 10y ago
  This is sad, you really think Trump is anti-immigrant? If you paid half a moment of attention you would know he is anti-ILLEGAL immigrant which is perfectly reasonable in a sovereign country with immigration laws.
  - idlewords 10y ago
mindslight 10y ago
This is a fantastic result of Trump's election. You should have been thinking this way for the past decade. Third party data silos are a grave liability - it hardly matters if the acting threat is overt authoritarianism, progressive totalitarianism, or plain old economics.
losteric 10y ago
Where can I get information on a Seattle Tech Solidarity group?
- idlewords 10y ago
  Contact me (my info is in the intro to the linked page). I'm hoping to set up a Seattle meeting in January.
tzs 10y ago
> The creation of a Muslim registry is obviously just the first step. It's a PR campaign to spread the idea that Muslims are a special group that can be discriminated against. If this happens, I will seriously consider becoming Muslim, and urging other irreligious people I know to consider doing the same, to dilute the database. I'd remain an atheist, but I'd be a Muslim atheist instead of a Christian atheist. I'd buy a Quran and read it once, then put it on the shelf and not believe it, replacing the Bible that is currently on my shelf not being believed. For local charity giving, I'd direct that to a local mosque instead of a local church. Only 0.9% of people in the United States are Muslim. Atheists and agnostics make up about 7%, so if a large fraction of atheists and agnostics registered as Muslims, it would greatly dilute the database. There are also a substantial number who believe in some sort of spirituality but not in traditional gods, and quite a few people who believe in gods but as a personal thing and not as part of an organized religion. All of these together make up about 20% of the population. If a lot of those people would register as Muslims, it would really really dilute the database.
- idlewords 10y ago
  I think there's value in the general idea of stuffing databases (like NSEERS or the no-fly list) to the point where they collapse under their own weight.
- tingley 10y ago
  If you are interested in this type of activism, and live in a city that offers its own form of ID (notably SF or LA), you can do this now by signing up for a city ID card. There is considerable concern that the city ID databases will be used as registries of illegal immigrants, so the more legal residents who take advantage of it, the weaker that signal becomes. Plus, it's nice to have a second form of photo ID sometimes. In SF, you need an appointment to get an ID. You can make one here: http://sfgov.org/countyclerk/sf-city-id-card http://sfgov.org/countyclerk/sf-city-id-card
hackermailman 10y ago
I'm in a union (pension, can't give it up) and I work F/T for one of those flat hierarchy startups, hired through a who's hiring post a few years ago. I actually prefer the union environment even with it's many problems to having no boss which is my other job. I now have to often depend on flaky coworkers who disappear days at a time or spam me with memes all day on Slack, and careless commits I have to fix repeatedly even after telling them the problem each time. There's nobody for me to complain to since we don't have a boss, there's an absentee founder somewhere and just every remote worker for themselves. The problems with a union is of course your dues being misspent on administrative bloat, campaign donations, executive travel (go to any union site and click on events, there's often 2-3 a month requiring travel), and education costs for executive members. The actual organizers and shop stewards aren't paid anything by the union, it's the top tier executives that pocket the dues. What we tried to do was get them to take half for admin bloat, stop the campaign donations nonsense, and put the rest into a strike fund to pay us during lockouts something more than the picket line pay which is a paltry $100/week. There is typically 4-6years between contracts, and we each pay them $162 a month in dues. Another problem is of course the adversarial situation that will inevitably become your daily workplace. Your management is now the enemy, as they will never capitulate to all your demands during collective bargaining so every single work meeting you have with them is usually a fight. Everything you do is now paid in time values, so if they ask you to do something that isn't clearly spelled out in the collective agreement you don't do it because it's free work, such as asking your contracted plumber to mow your lawn. This creates many problems, as management repeatedly tries to implement ridiculous new procedures that of course add time which is unpaid. The positives with a union is you can directly confront coworkers if you have issues with them that are work related (and not criminal such as sexual harassment), so you don't have to go to management which could have them fired. It's nice to work out petty disputes between a floor steward and your coworker without the heavy hand of management adding complexity and fear into the mix. Another positive is you are free to speak your mind directly to management without fear of being arbitrarily terminated or screwed with. It's common where I work to see somebody walk up to management and tell them their attitude is disgusting to their face in front of everybody. Finally you get to bid on everything, so the founder's cousin who started yesterday doesn't get priority vacation over you. Also goodbye implied forced Christmas parties, implied forced picnics with some visiting sales manager or your boss on the weekend or forced team building clownery outside of work hours, fake vacation policies that claim to be 'unlimited', unpaid overtime, and idiotic work environments like cafes or bars, my favorite idiocy being a historic theatre sized bank building converted into a very loud cafe with wood benches roped off where everybody was expected to work.
mc32 10y ago
One important thing is a bit mischaracterized, Trump didn't claim he'd deport 11 million legal immigrants, he claimed he'd deport illegal immigrants. Even Mexico deports illegal immigrants to its country. It's not something most countries consider controversial. As far as I know he didn't say he'd turn a blind eye to police violence. What he said was essentially he wanted less antagonism toward police. I think playing loose with words like this and confounding things kind of elicits skepticism.
- idlewords 10y ago
  60 Minutes interview, September 2015: Pelley: "Eleven, 12 million illegal immigrants --" Trump: "Or whatever the number is." Pelley: "Still in the country, what do you do?" Trump: "If they've done well, they're going out and they're coming back in legally. Because you said it--" Pelley: "You're rounding them all up?" Trump: "We're rounding 'em up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they're going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn't sound nice. But not everything is nice."
  - mc32 10y ago
    If he really wanted to keep out illegal immigrants he'd do what Japan or China do. Require verification of legal residence from everyone for job, schools, etc. No fences/walls needed. Or he could ask someone to develop an app where people could report people who are working without proper docs and fine the workplace and schools for violations. It could even be incentivized and non false positives get rewards of some sort --tax credit, whatever. False positives get demerits, etc. That said, if employers are not willing to pay citizens a minimum wage of $15, then we will need a way to allow cheap unskilled imported labor to work on farms etc. Set up a system where you allow seasonal work visas. If you overstay, you are out 5 years. If you want to stay past a season extend your visa by exposing someone overstaying their visa so you get self policing. However, since this creates underemployed citizens, tax the employers who employ imported labor to underwrite citizen unemployment benefits.
    - postcarnival 10y ago

81 points by stablemap 10y ago

Forming a union and joining the labor movement would be a start. Oh sure everybody hates unions, but there's not a progressive country in the world without a strong labor movement. Without labor you're left with narrow-minded plutocrats and unreliable technocrats to run everything.

sidlls 10y ago
Good luck with that. This industry has too many people with egos far bigger than their accomplishments justify, in my opinion. There is a tendency in this field for folks to believe tech is about as close to a meritocracy as it gets, and that unions or even a trade guild would just hold "the best" back.
- twblalock 10y ago
  > There is a tendency in this field for folks to believe tech is about as close to a meritocracy as it gets, and that unions or even a trade guild would just hold "the best" back. You don't have to be arrogant about your own abilities to realize that promotion based on seniority would privilege longer-tenured workers over better, lesser-tenured workers. That doesn't just hurt the best workers -- it hurts anyone who is above the average. Promotion based on seniority is a common feature of union contracts, so it's a valid concern. Some people like seniority-based promotion because it can reduce discrimination in promotion decisions. For example, a woman could be promoted based on seniority even though her sexist boss might prefer a less-qualified, less-tenured male candidate. That would certainly be unfair, and seniority-based promotion could prevent that. However, the tech industry is currently mostly men, which means that any female employee who joins a large company will have at least a few decades' worth of men ahead of her in line for a promotion, no matter how good she is at her job. Seniority-based promotion would actually entrench gender diversity problems for at least 20 years, rather than solve them. The only way it would have positive effects vis a vis diversity would be to impose it on a workforce that is already diverse but has discriminatory managers.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - sidlls 10y ago
    Do you have evidence that seniority based promotion hurts above average workers? Do you have good reason to suspect that seniority based promotion is a likely enough feature of a union in this industry to warrant concern?
    - twblalock 10y ago
      Average is the break-even point. If you are average: Given that most people are average (because that's what average means), you aren't an outlier, so you wouldn't expect a faster or slower promotion timeline in a meritocratic system than in a seniority based system. After all, the majority of people more senior than you at any company are likely to be average too (because that's what average means), unless the company has an unusual distribution of employee skill across the tenure spectrum. In a meritocratic system, you are still average, and you would still have an average promotion timeline. If you are average, it doesn't much matter what system you have. If you are above average: Your talent will be recognized, and you will be promoted faster than most of your peers in a meritocratic system. In a seniority-based system, people who are not as good as you will be promoted before you because they have worked at the company longer. This hurts you, and it hurts the company, because both could do better under a meritocracy. You should prefer a meritocratic system over a seniority-based system. If you are below average: In a meritocratic system, you would be promoted as a last resort, when better people are not available. In a seniority-based system, you will be promoted just because you stuck around, even if you suck. You should prefer a seniority-based system over a meritocratic system. If you are a worker at any level, and you improve your job skills and your value to the company, that will increase your promotion prospects in a meritocratic system, but not change them in any way in a seniority-based system. So why would anyone try to improve or work hard in a seniority-based system?
      - sidlls 10y ago
        I have to object: you've provided a description of how you think seniority based systems work, but no evidence to support your contention that it is, in fact, the way they do.
- chrismealy 10y ago
  True, but if professional athletes and Hollywood actors can be in unions so can hot shot web devs. Plenty of meritocracy (ugh I hate that word) in those fields.
tptacek 10y ago
It's easy to forget that there are collective action goals that go beyond better wages and more benefits. If you believe that corporations exert disproportionate control over policy in the US, collective action is a way to make that control more responsive to citizens.
- chrismealy 10y ago
  Yes! IIRC unions provide campaign funding roughly equivalent to the (very right wing) Chamber of Commerce. Unions support liberal think tanks, which develop progressive policies and support the next generation of progressive journalists and policy analysts. More than money, they provide coordination. It's easy for 100 rich dudes to get together and drive policy. It's hard for 200 million working people. That's what a labor movement is for.
  - brightball 10y ago
    Remember that time labor unions lobbied for tax incentives to encourage employer provided health insurance that resulted in the disaster of a system we have today?
    - avmich 10y ago
      Are you sure the employer provided health insurance is a notable cause of the disaster of the current system?
      - brightball 10y ago
        Not letting individuals deduct it directly created the system that removed health insurance from the consumer market, which removed health care from the market, which created the meteoric rise in costs. Anytime people are removed from the cost of a thing, the price goes up. Housing, education, healthcare. Even buying groceries people spend more than twice as much with a credit card vs cash.
        10y ago
whybroke 10y ago
If a union eventually grows out of this, fine. If a lobbyist or voting block emerges, that's fine too. But in the short term, I suggest the focus be on preserving the industry from the large number of threats it now faces via cooperation from all roles in the industry. Once a habit of cooperation emerges, further future cooperation among members would be very likely.

susan_hall 10y ago

From the Notes, this is a very sad story: "I am Muslim, born in Massachusetts. I love my faith. Muslims in the US are very scared. Both my mom and wife wear the hijab, so I'm always worried they'll be attacked in the street. Even in the Bay Area it's a concern. Of course I encourage them to continue; it's important not to be affected. A few years ago, my mom and sister were at a farmers' market in Boston, what seems like a liberal setting. A big guy ran up and called them terrorists, started spitting at them. My 60 year old mom and 20 year old sister were really intimidated. My sister cried for the rest of the day. People stood by and watched. I give them the benefit of the doubt; they were taken off guard. We have to be aware of our surroundings and be ready to act. It takes mental preparation, so you don't end up reacting like a deer in the headlights." I am worried what happens to a diverse country, such as the USA, when it elects a leadership that is vocally anti-immigrant. We are about to find out. All of us need to do what we can to minimize the kind of bigotry that might escalate under anti-immigrant leadership.

rubicon33 10y ago
It's a potentially very scary time for minorities. The president sets the tone of the country through their actions. A president being anti-immigrant could bring that same quality out in others...
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  That's already happening. I've witnessed people trying to intimidate minority folk here in the East Bay, yelling 'you're going over the wall!' unprovoked at people on the street for example.
postcarnival 10y ago
This is sad, you really think Trump is anti-immigrant? If you paid half a moment of attention you would know he is anti-ILLEGAL immigrant which is perfectly reasonable in a sovereign country with immigration laws.
- idlewords 10y ago

mindslight 10y ago

This is a fantastic result of Trump's election. You should have been thinking this way for the past decade. Third party data silos are a grave liability - it hardly matters if the acting threat is overt authoritarianism, progressive totalitarianism, or plain old economics.

losteric 10y ago

Where can I get information on a Seattle Tech Solidarity group?

idlewords 10y ago
Contact me (my info is in the intro to the linked page). I'm hoping to set up a Seattle meeting in January.

tzs 10y ago

> The creation of a Muslim registry is obviously just the first step. It's a PR campaign to spread the idea that Muslims are a special group that can be discriminated against. If this happens, I will seriously consider becoming Muslim, and urging other irreligious people I know to consider doing the same, to dilute the database. I'd remain an atheist, but I'd be a Muslim atheist instead of a Christian atheist. I'd buy a Quran and read it once, then put it on the shelf and not believe it, replacing the Bible that is currently on my shelf not being believed. For local charity giving, I'd direct that to a local mosque instead of a local church. Only 0.9% of people in the United States are Muslim. Atheists and agnostics make up about 7%, so if a large fraction of atheists and agnostics registered as Muslims, it would greatly dilute the database. There are also a substantial number who believe in some sort of spirituality but not in traditional gods, and quite a few people who believe in gods but as a personal thing and not as part of an organized religion. All of these together make up about 20% of the population. If a lot of those people would register as Muslims, it would really really dilute the database.

idlewords 10y ago
I think there's value in the general idea of stuffing databases (like NSEERS or the no-fly list) to the point where they collapse under their own weight.
tingley 10y ago
If you are interested in this type of activism, and live in a city that offers its own form of ID (notably SF or LA), you can do this now by signing up for a city ID card. There is considerable concern that the city ID databases will be used as registries of illegal immigrants, so the more legal residents who take advantage of it, the weaker that signal becomes. Plus, it's nice to have a second form of photo ID sometimes. In SF, you need an appointment to get an ID. You can make one here: http://sfgov.org/countyclerk/sf-city-id-card http://sfgov.org/countyclerk/sf-city-id-card

hackermailman 10y ago

I'm in a union (pension, can't give it up) and I work F/T for one of those flat hierarchy startups, hired through a who's hiring post a few years ago. I actually prefer the union environment even with it's many problems to having no boss which is my other job. I now have to often depend on flaky coworkers who disappear days at a time or spam me with memes all day on Slack, and careless commits I have to fix repeatedly even after telling them the problem each time. There's nobody for me to complain to since we don't have a boss, there's an absentee founder somewhere and just every remote worker for themselves. The problems with a union is of course your dues being misspent on administrative bloat, campaign donations, executive travel (go to any union site and click on events, there's often 2-3 a month requiring travel), and education costs for executive members. The actual organizers and shop stewards aren't paid anything by the union, it's the top tier executives that pocket the dues. What we tried to do was get them to take half for admin bloat, stop the campaign donations nonsense, and put the rest into a strike fund to pay us during lockouts something more than the picket line pay which is a paltry $100/week. There is typically 4-6years between contracts, and we each pay them $162 a month in dues. Another problem is of course the adversarial situation that will inevitably become your daily workplace. Your management is now the enemy, as they will never capitulate to all your demands during collective bargaining so every single work meeting you have with them is usually a fight. Everything you do is now paid in time values, so if they ask you to do something that isn't clearly spelled out in the collective agreement you don't do it because it's free work, such as asking your contracted plumber to mow your lawn. This creates many problems, as management repeatedly tries to implement ridiculous new procedures that of course add time which is unpaid. The positives with a union is you can directly confront coworkers if you have issues with them that are work related (and not criminal such as sexual harassment), so you don't have to go to management which could have them fired. It's nice to work out petty disputes between a floor steward and your coworker without the heavy hand of management adding complexity and fear into the mix. Another positive is you are free to speak your mind directly to management without fear of being arbitrarily terminated or screwed with. It's common where I work to see somebody walk up to management and tell them their attitude is disgusting to their face in front of everybody. Finally you get to bid on everything, so the founder's cousin who started yesterday doesn't get priority vacation over you. Also goodbye implied forced Christmas parties, implied forced picnics with some visiting sales manager or your boss on the weekend or forced team building clownery outside of work hours, fake vacation policies that claim to be 'unlimited', unpaid overtime, and idiotic work environments like cafes or bars, my favorite idiocy being a historic theatre sized bank building converted into a very loud cafe with wood benches roped off where everybody was expected to work.

mc32 10y ago

One important thing is a bit mischaracterized, Trump didn't claim he'd deport 11 million legal immigrants, he claimed he'd deport illegal immigrants. Even Mexico deports illegal immigrants to its country. It's not something most countries consider controversial. As far as I know he didn't say he'd turn a blind eye to police violence. What he said was essentially he wanted less antagonism toward police. I think playing loose with words like this and confounding things kind of elicits skepticism.

idlewords 10y ago
60 Minutes interview, September 2015: Pelley: "Eleven, 12 million illegal immigrants --" Trump: "Or whatever the number is." Pelley: "Still in the country, what do you do?" Trump: "If they've done well, they're going out and they're coming back in legally. Because you said it--" Pelley: "You're rounding them all up?" Trump: "We're rounding 'em up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they're going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn't sound nice. But not everything is nice."
- mc32 10y ago
  If he really wanted to keep out illegal immigrants he'd do what Japan or China do. Require verification of legal residence from everyone for job, schools, etc. No fences/walls needed. Or he could ask someone to develop an app where people could report people who are working without proper docs and fine the workplace and schools for violations. It could even be incentivized and non false positives get rewards of some sort --tax credit, whatever. False positives get demerits, etc. That said, if employers are not willing to pay citizens a minimum wage of $15, then we will need a way to allow cheap unskilled imported labor to work on farms etc. Set up a system where you allow seasonal work visas. If you overstay, you are out 5 years. If you want to stay past a season extend your visa by exposing someone overstaying their visa so you get self policing. However, since this creates underemployed citizens, tax the employers who employ imported labor to underwrite citizen unemployment benefits.
  - postcarnival 10y ago