6 ms·

Not a big fan of this headline - it's inflammatory and incomplete. This is one (unproven and completely unsubstantiated) accusation from one side of the story,

• jacquesm 7y ago
  What are the chances of three people trying to unionize in a company being fired in a very short span of time for 'performance' reasons? Are you holding out until the company says 'Ok, caught, yes, we did fire them for trying to unionize'?
  • WillPostForFood 7y ago
    Pretty likely that the kind of person trying to unionize at a company isn't fully focused on doing their work for the company.
    • jacquesm 7y ago
      > Pretty likely that the kind of person trying to unionize at a company isn't fully focused on doing their work for the company. Right. So anybody trying to unionize should be fired for non-performance, got it. /s
    • hatfortguy 7y ago
      Maybe we'd be able to focus on our work better if we had a union protecting is from this kind of corporate behaviour.
  • pathseeker 7y ago
    >What are the chances of three people trying to unionize in a company being fired in a very short span of time for 'performance' reasons Pretty good. The type of person looking to form a union in software dev where there isn't one is usually someone very unhappy at the company which as a very high correlation with not performing well (at least in the eyes of their manager).
    • jhall1468 7y ago
      [Citation needed] I think you are crossing a sea of assumptions to get to "pretty good".
      • kortilla 7y ago
        Why would you form a union if you are happy with the arrangement with your employer?
    • shantly 7y ago
      Really? I'd never dream of trying something like that except from a position of strength.
  • bsamuels 7y ago
    I could definitely a envision a theoretical situation where three poorly performing employees decide to unionize to protect themselves, then eventually get fired for poor performance. Is that what happened? I don't know, but I'm not going to trust two tweets from two parties whose interests are against one another.
    • jacquesm 7y ago
      Ok, fair enough. Then maybe do a google on this and read some more, see if stuff over and beyond the 'two tweets' is going to sway you that this is retaliation pure and simple.
    • fzeroracer 7y ago
      Shouldn't you be applying Occam's razor here? Attempting to make a conspiracy out of an attempt to unionize seems like a rather poor argument. In this case, the employees coming out with this knowledge have everything to lose because they could easily be blacklisted from further jobs. Kickstarter has no reason to not deny their accusations and has everything to gain from it. If someone is risking a their livelihood to say something like that, then perhaps we should take what they're saying with a larger grain of truth. Otherwise we'd be saying that whistleblowers and the PR arm of a company have exactly the same weight.
      • dandellion 7y ago
        I don't think this is the best place to apply Occam's razor. Why would I want to rush to a conclusion based on a couple of tweets by someone I know so little about? I don't know his personal circumstances, I don't know what he wants to accomplish or what he stands to win or lose with those tweets, I don't really know what interest the company would have from firing him and the others or to lose from a union. I know nothing of this so I don't see the need to pick a side on a conflict that has little to do with me. If a few months from now, I read an article about what just happened now and it turns out that the company ends up being fined or something because the motivations behind firing him are actually what he claims, then it's the moment we can start being outraged, not before.
    • 7y ago
  • markbnj 7y ago
    I don't know. Are you saying the odds can be calculated? Presumably it's not impossible, and so it's fair to object to the post on the grounds that it's one-sided and doesn't fairly expose other viewpoints on what happened.
    • jacquesm 7y ago
      'what are the chances' is a statement of incredulity indicating that the chances are likely to be on the low side which means the writer believes that something else is afoot. The odds can't be calculated but I see no need for that, on a company the size of Kickstarter the chances of the three people who just happen to be busy trying to get a union organized after many years of otherwise uneventful employment are nil. In theory pigs can fly, in practice, if you see a pig flying it is usually good practice to check which airborne vehicle they were tossed out of.
      • markbnj 7y ago
        I know of no theory predicting porcine aeronautics :). In any case, the point is that it is not impossible that what you consider very unlikely is exactly what happened. So we wait for all the information before making judgements.
        • jacquesm 7y ago
          > So we wait for all the information before making judgements. There is absolutely zero chance that 'all the information' will ever come out. The people directly affected will have nothing to lose, the remainder will be afraid for their jobs and will not talk or will only talk off the record. The company will claim it was nothing of the sort. And yet, magically, no union will ever be formed.
          • deleted 7y ago
            [deleted]
  • whiddershins 7y ago
    Maybe if I was having unrelated problems at my job, me personally, I might consider trying to start a Union so as to make my employer terrified of firing me. I’m saying thus not theoretically, but a buddy just the other day was joking-not-joking about doing that at his job. So who knows?
    • jacquesm 7y ago
      I think your buddy joking-not-joking about it is slightly different than someone who has worked somewhere for 8 years straight claiming that is exactly what happened to him and two other co-workers. Keep in mind that they are killing their chances of being employed by any other union-shy workplace which is 'most of tech'. So there is significant downside to this. Also note that he refused to sign an NDA that would have prohibited him to talk about it and which would have put money in his pocket, so there is some evidence that this person - by his own claims - is rather principled. And then there is that other article linked in this thread which provides a ton more circumstantial evidence.
  • macspoofing 7y ago
    >What are the chances of three people trying to unionize in a company being fired in a very short span of time for 'performance' reasons? I don't know. What are the chances? Did anyone verify their stories?
    • jacquesm 7y ago
      Yes, somebody did. But of course nobody will come out with their name attached that still has a job to lose.
  • rolltiide 7y ago
    What are the chances that 3 of the 435 fired Uber engineers had considered the concept of unionizing as its a general topic now? With that perspective I think its highly probable of such firings happening in a short time span
    • jacquesm 7y ago
      Did any of them step forward with those claims? Are the numbers here 'Kickstarter fired 435 people and 3 of them claimed they were trying to unionize'?
  • cperciva 7y ago
    From the slate article: "Afraid that they would be dismissed next—and that they didn’t have enough leverage to pressure Kickstarter over ethical issues the next time there was a disagreement—employees started discussing a union." Sounds to me like they saw the writing on the wall.
  • busterarm 7y ago
    And 14 of the 15 people eligible out of the 28 people backing unionization at Kickstarter got a raise or promotion... Hmm... I know a handful of people at Kickstarter, including some of the union backers. A fair number of employees have concerns about how the folks trying to organize the union have acted. Seems they deliberately have gone to the press as leverage against the company rather than work to get employees to back their cause. It's a 140 person company and they only have the public support of 20% of the staff.
    • jacquesm 7y ago
      So you are confirming they were fired for trying to unionize? Thank you. It is interesting that the 'going to the press' bit gets trotted out as if that is something the employees should not have done. Companies go to the press all the time when it suits them, but employees using the press as leverage is beyond the pale. Of course they would go to the press, if retaliation is imminent that is one of the last ways in which an employee might defend themselves. It wouldn't be the first time that the press served to right a wrong, and it certainly won't be the last. If 20% of the company supported unionization that makes it 150/5 = 30 people at most, 3 of which have been fired in a very short window of time. That's going to help a lot in the inevitable court case.
      • busterarm 7y ago
        How do you even read that as that? All I said was that 28 people in the company publicly stated their support for a union (there's 42 needed to establish one). 15 of those 28 people were eligible for a promotion or raise. 14 of those 15 received their promotion or raise. Doesn't look like union busting at all to me, but thanks for putting words in my mouth. My comment about the press was because the pro-union group is having a hard time getting those 14 additional people they needed to support them and in the meantime have created a ton of bad press for the company, which does impact the assets of the very employees they're supposed to be supporting the interests of.
        • jacquesm 7y ago
  • kmjg88nvf8 7y ago
    Maybe they were trying to unionize to prevent being fired, as they already knew their performance was lacking?
    • jacquesm 7y ago
      After 8 years and counting for at least one of the three? If your performance is lacking you won't get around to unionizing because your co-workers will see through that ruse in a heartbeat. According to one - insider informed - commenter here about 20% of the company was in favor, not enough to put it to a vote but apparently enough of a reason to ask the company to recognize the union voluntarily. So this was not just a couple of people organizing a union to avoid their own termination.
      • kmjg88nvf8 7y ago
        Why did they want to form a union, after 8 years? I think some people will always be in favor of a union, no matter what. It's also an ideological thing.
• stefan_ 7y ago
  Of course they didn't go on Twitter and declare "we broke the law". I flagged this comment.
• SamReidHughes 7y ago
  What a dysrationalist comment. I'm the last person anybody would call pro-union and I think this has all the smell of union busting.
• CPLX 7y ago
  > unproven and completely unsubstantiated Very little in this world is proven, but this is certainly substantiated. First off, an on the record first person accusation from an involved party is by itself compelling evidence, secondly, the story has in fact been supported by credible journalistic outlets with multiple sources.
• yawaramin 7y ago
  > it's not a 'story' - there's no investigative reporting - heck there's no reporting at all. https://slate.com/technology/2019/09/kickstarter-turmoil-union-drive-historic-tech-industry.html https://slate.com/technology/2019/09/kickstarter-turmoil-uni...
• mrzool 7y ago
  > Kickstarter also tweeted, and of course denies this Of course denies this. I stand with the workers.
• pteredactyl 7y ago
  What you describe is what I've heard summarizes the state of KS. Both sides are entrenched and talking past each other while the actual product and company continue to slide into the gutter. Seems to me both sides would rather plant their flags and signal allegiance to the outside world than come up with a real solution. Kickstarter is on its way out.
  • double0jimb0 7y ago
    Very interesting theory. Virtue signaling instead of solution finding at the company level.
    • pteredactyl 7y ago
      It's the same thing happening in Politics. But it's also why I'd argue people are realizing how fake this whole charade is as our society falls further into the gutter. And truly it is more fun to work together solving hard problems rather than screaming past each other. We've been so isolated, our whole lives, only now are we realizing what it means to be in the public. Vulnerable yet strong (I may be projecting here).