7 ms·

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 Kic

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
    > 28 people in the company publicly stated their support for a union (there's 42 needed to establish one). It is not unreasonable to suspect that if 28 people are openly in support that there are 42 in total. > Doesn't look like union busting at all to me, but thanks for putting words in my mouth. You'd have to show that in the 'control' group of 120 other employees 12 or more got fired; not that 14 of the people in the group that supported unionization got a raise. They are - presumably - not the organizers, which is what matters here. > 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. And my point is that if you fire the organizers and get away with it that there won't be any union regardless of how many people would have supported it. If they took a vote and lost then that's that and business as usual, no need to fire anybody.
    - busterarm 7y ago
      The company wants the union organizers to vote. It has said as much. The union organizers don't want a vote, they want Kickstarter to voluntarily recognize them. This is in the articles, man...
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        That still does not give the company the right to fire them, which is the law man... And the company could recognize the union if it wanted. So a vote is not mandatory. Note the subject of the post: "Kickstarter employees fired for trying to unionize". That's either true or it is not and so far you have not brought anything to the table that suggests it isn't retaliation for exactly that, and in fact substantiated numerically that the chances that it is not retaliation are vanishingly small.
        SamReidHughes 7y ago
        They aren’t independent samples though. They could all have gone on a downward spiral of disgruntlement at around the same time (on the order of months), and then once management finally got around to doing something about it, they started the termination processes at the same time (on the order of days).
anigbrowl 7y ago
What of it though? That's like saying only 5 out of 100 employees at a company are in the C-Suite and they've gone straight to negotiating with a bunch of VCs instead of involving all the employees in the financial decision-making.

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
  > 28 people in the company publicly stated their support for a union (there's 42 needed to establish one). It is not unreasonable to suspect that if 28 people are openly in support that there are 42 in total. > Doesn't look like union busting at all to me, but thanks for putting words in my mouth. You'd have to show that in the 'control' group of 120 other employees 12 or more got fired; not that 14 of the people in the group that supported unionization got a raise. They are - presumably - not the organizers, which is what matters here. > 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. And my point is that if you fire the organizers and get away with it that there won't be any union regardless of how many people would have supported it. If they took a vote and lost then that's that and business as usual, no need to fire anybody.
  - busterarm 7y ago
    The company wants the union organizers to vote. It has said as much. The union organizers don't want a vote, they want Kickstarter to voluntarily recognize them. This is in the articles, man...
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      That still does not give the company the right to fire them, which is the law man... And the company could recognize the union if it wanted. So a vote is not mandatory. Note the subject of the post: "Kickstarter employees fired for trying to unionize". That's either true or it is not and so far you have not brought anything to the table that suggests it isn't retaliation for exactly that, and in fact substantiated numerically that the chances that it is not retaliation are vanishingly small.
      - SamReidHughes 7y ago
        They aren’t independent samples though. They could all have gone on a downward spiral of disgruntlement at around the same time (on the order of months), and then once management finally got around to doing something about it, they started the termination processes at the same time (on the order of days).

anigbrowl 7y ago

What of it though? That's like saying only 5 out of 100 employees at a company are in the C-Suite and they've gone straight to negotiating with a bunch of VCs instead of involving all the employees in the financial decision-making.