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Blizzard executive asks employees to “consider the consequences” of union card
- BoysenberryPi 5y agoWatching HN debate unions is always a good time. Blizzard is right, being in a union generally means you can't negotiate for yourself but seeing as the workers are in this position to begin with, negotiating for themselves clearly wasn't working out.
- stefan_ 5y agoMy favorite is the post at the top discussing why game dev is so horrible. They never quite seem to make the connection.
- gigatexal 5y agoLol “think of the children”. Blizzard can go fuck itself.
- dayofthedaleks 5y agoI'm imagining a companion video where the exec reading the statement pointedly ignores a row of Kellogg's products on the shelf behind them.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoThis is an incredibly misleading way to summarize the email in the picture. No reasonable person could read the quote in context and think Blizzard is threatening employees. I really think we need a moratorium on direct Twitter links, because I can’t remember the last one I saw here that wasn’t misinformation.
- gennarro 5y agoI’m all for removing direct Twitter links. Nothing good ever comes from them and almost no original content either.
- andrew_ 5y agothe complete inability for Twitter threads (and replies) to convey nuance should be enough to meet criteria for flagging.
- heavenlyblue 5y agoWow, thanks for the comment. Reading the email gives a completely different perspective.
- dariusj18 5y agoI can see how it could be misleading, but the way I read it wasn't as a threat but a condescension.
- user-the-name 5y agoThe person who sent the message has a history of personally threatening people: https://twitter.com/catoncoals/status/1469365235475791872 https://twitter.com/catoncoals/status/1469365235475791872
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoYou should generally not believe uncorroborated accusations by random people on Twitter leveled immediately after their target is in the news. This could be true, but there are also clear incentives to make it up or exaggerate it for clicks; if you don't know this person, how can you evaluate their/his credibility? This tweet in particular seems very vulnerable to the same kind of distortion as in the original submission, where innocuous things from people you've resolved not to trust start being casted as threats.
- user-the-name 5y agoOr, maybe you just don't want to believe it and you are reaching for any excuse not to.
- codingdave 5y agoI didn't see anyone say anything about threats. The email said "consider the consequences". The tweet repeated the phrase "consider the consequences". That is about as factual of a representation as one could make.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoIt's a factual representation with the clear effect of misleading people. I won't claim to know what the tweeter or submitter intended, but it's impossible to believe that this submission is sitting at the top of HN just because people think "consider" is a neat word. We're all here because we read the title and thought it meant the Blizzard executive was threatening employees.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bigyellow 5y agoThis is today's "news" and "journalism" - take something reasonable and distill it to hyperbole in 140 characters or less. Doesn't matter if it's true or false, so long as it evokes an emotional reaction and gets clicks. Truly sad to see how many minds have been dimmed by Twitter and other social media outlets.
- gorwell 5y agoTwitter in a nutshell; outrage-based misinformation.
- cableshaft 5y agoI think they already have. That's why thy want it.
- catlikesshrimp 5y agoI would think otherwise from people commenting that the document is too long.
- moate 5y agoI'm sorry, you're take is that "Twitter takes must represent the actual desires of the people at Blizzard considering unionization"? Sir, I have some things to explain to you about the internet...
- aetherson 5y agoI'd suggest that Blizzard employees consider the consequences of working in computer games, rather than almost any other branch of software engineering, where conditions are better. Game companies take advantage of the fact that there is a large population of software engineers who want to meld their work and their hobbies by offering worse working conditions, lower pay, and less stable employment than they could get elsewhere. Just... play games. And work in a field that treats its employees well.
- coding123 5y agoYou can't tell them to just play games. If they all did (at least the good ones) they would have any. We need people to work for better game companies or start their own.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y agoThe only time I'd be a game developer is if I did an indie game solo or with an artist friend. I mean look at the wealth of indie games that exist. It's honestly the only place where original ideas come from now.
- user-the-name 5y ago"Don't try to make the world better" is a pretty shitty attitude to have. No, try to make it better! Fight like hell to make it better! That is how we progress. That is how we got the worker's protections we have now. They weren't given magnanimously. We fought long and hard for every single one, and it made everyone's life better. Demand better. Always demand better.
- newsbinator 5y agoBeing more charitable to GP's point, I didn't read it as "don't try to improve conditions". I read it as "vote with your feet".
- user-the-name 5y ago"Voting with your feet" might work if it was hard to find people to replace you, but it's not. And it means giving up on what you want to do because of oppression. You should not need to give up on what you want to do because of shitty bosses.
- ozzythecat 5y agoI read the email on that Twitter page. This headline makes it sound as if Blizzard threatened their employees. That’s actually not the case. It says if you sign the document, you’re handing certain rights over to an outside organization. It’s legally binding. Regardless of your thoughts about Blizzard, unions, or whatever views you have — the headline is misleading clickbait trying to manufacture outrage. They know most people will look at this headline and not read the lengthy email.
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoYou have to understand that it's as close to a threat as they can legally write, likely after significant consultation with an anti-union consultant. And much of it is an outright lie: If folks fail to pass a unionization vote now, they probably can't just go and vote for it later, it doesn't work that way.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoIt's not in the same universe as a threat! The only negative thing the letter says is that unionizing will mean the CWA has exclusive representation rights. They don't suggest that there will be any negative effects on wages or employment practices or retention. I'm not sure what the "it" you're referring to is, but I'm pretty confident it's possible to continue a unionization drive indefinitely or drop it and restart it later. Restrictions come into play only at later steps in the process; until the CWA gets enough union authorization cards to petition for an election or ask for voluntary recognition, there's no deadlines or cooldown periods involved.
- ozzythecat 5y agoI don’t see how it’s a “threat” or anywhere near a threat. Many people will sign a document because someone else says, “it’s good for you”. It’s good to know that you’re signing a legally binding document. >If folks fail to pass a unionization vote now, they probably can't just go and vote for it later, it doesn't work that way. That’s besides the point. Should people sign a document without knowing it’s legally binding or understanding what it entails, simply because the union vote might not happen again later? Btw your post makes it sound as if the company is inherently evil or trying to screw its workers. Many capitalist businesses don’t want a union. And many unions are actually not effective. I’m not in favor nor against this unionization, but there’s a clear bias here and attempt to manufacture outrage.
- kcplate 5y agoSo…encouraging people to read the fine print on a contract they are signing is an awful thing to do? I think a few commenters read the headline and not the actual letter.
- lewich 5y agoDo employees pay some % to the unions? In our country unions are useless and are created to make their leaders rich but not the people they represent.
- umvi 5y agoYes, Union dues are usually automatically subtracted from paychecks
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoThe key difference though is that statistically, unionized employees are paid more than non-unionized employees... so much so that the union dues are significantly less than the increased pay from collective bargaining.
- JumpCrisscross 5y agoOn average. Top performers often see compensation fall. For industries where “top performer” isn’t a thing because the labor is commoditised, that doesn’t matter. But for some domains it does.
- arvinsim 5y agoI wonder how much being a top performer matter in game development when there is a glut in supply.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- danaris 5y agoThe problem is, far too many programmers think they're "top performers" who deserve to be paid way more than the guy in the next cubicle over—far, far more than can possibly be the case, mathematically speaking. Personally, even if I believed myself to be the mythical 10x developer, I would still advocate for unions, because a) Unions help with more than just pay; they make working conditions and benefits vastly better b) I care about the people around me being paid fairly, too c) If I'm genuinely good enough to be at the top of whatever pay scale there ends up being, I'm confident that a union will make sure that's enough money to live comfortably, and that's all I need. I have negative interest in ever having a lifestyle in which the difference between $150k/yr and $200k/yr actually affects what I can do for myself or how I can live.
- chrisgd 5y agoInstead of “dedicating $250M to accelerate opportunities” why not use $25M to better comp the people you have now?
- throwuxiytayq 5y agoThat's about $2500 per employee. Truly life-changing.
- chrisgd 5y agoPretty sure this is sarcasm. Plus your math is wrong
- abduhl 5y ago25 million divided by 10k employees is indeed $2500. Seems correct to me.
- chrisgd 5y agoNot all of them need to be incentivized
- abduhl 5y agoThat goes against basic union dogma. No employee should be given worse (better) treatment or incentives than another employee of comparable standing. And luckily, once the union comes in, none of them will be, which is what the email at issue kind of says.
- kentrado 5y agoIs that how unions work in the US? If so, that's kind of dumb, but knowing how anti union the average American is you are probably exaggerating.
- xbar 5y agoI struggle to imagine where I would enjoy working less: an engineering company with culture so wrong, or at a company where my colleagues and I were represented by a union.
- unbanned 5y agoWhy?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jrmg 5y agoWhat _would_ joining the union mean for employees? Most people in tech are used to differences in pay from person to person, with raises and bonuses allocated yearly (or some other time period) based on a review of the last year’s performance. Would this end, with pay flat across the board?
- dagmx 5y agoUnions don't necessarily mean flat pay. Many unions allow individuals to get pay bumps above the baseline. They usually do mean structured pay brackets so that there's a floor. This prevents exploitation.
- danaris 5y agoOnly if that's what their union local decides to negotiate into a new contract with ActiBlizzard. Unions are made up of the workers within them, and especially new ones are there to represent their members' interests. If their members want flat pay, then they'll push for flat pay. If they want pay based on performance and other metrics, they'll push for that. There's no rulebook for unions that says "Everyone must be paid the same, and terrible workers must be unfireable." This is a negative stereotype of unions—based on some real-world examples, to be sure, but a stereotype all the same—that has been aggressively pushed as anti-union propaganda for decades.
- rsj_hn 5y ago> This is a negative stereotype of unions—based on some real-world examples, to be sure, but a stereotype all the same—that has been aggressively pushed as anti-union propaganda for decades. It would be interesting to see examples of unions that aggressively promote performance based pay -- this is a genuine question. I think an objective view would show that the stereotype is broadly accurate, if not 100% accurate. The reason for this is that we live in a world in which 20% of the people do 80% of the work, but only have 20% of the votes. That is why there is an inherent tension between democracy and fair pay. It's true that this has nothing to do with unions per se, except that unions are the ones to be in a position to vote on pay. One could imagine a different situation, say where the number of votes you have is weighted by your salary when the union first forms, and have negotiations be for total labor expenditure rather than individual worker salaries. Then you can still have a union but it would resist the type of equalization forces by which the best people exit for higher pay outside the union, which ends up being a drag on both the union and the company and causes a lot of firms to oppose unions more than they otherwise would.
- jmull 5y agoThis is a fundamentally dishonest letter. The exec knows perfectly well that employees negotiating as a group have a lot more leverage and consequently will get better outcomes than ones that negotiate individually. The letter does its best to imply agreeing to pool your leverage with other employees is a bad thing when, in fact, it's usually a good thing. Also, do a lot of people really not see the implied threat of a phrase like "consider the consequences"? Of course there isn't a direct threat -- implied works just fine and leaves you on a much nicer legal footing. I'm pretty sure most Bliz employees get it. I especially like the bolded part. Of course the leadership of Bliz does not like the workers' rights under the NLRA. Emphasizing it really makes the point that a lot of double-speak is going to happen in the letter, for legal reasons. Bliz management has a rather direct and huge conflict of interest when it comes to giving their employees advice (legal advice, no less!) on how best to negotiate with them. It shows how little they respect the intelligence of their employees that they would release a letter like this.
- blagie 5y agoIt's not fundamentally dishonest. Perhaps it's situationally dishonest. Unions are a bad idea when management treats employees well. They introduce costs and inefficiencies. The need for a union are a signal that something else has failed or been done unfairly. Amazon workers should unionize. Google and Facebook? Probably not. The market dynamics work out well too if this is handled on a case-by-case basis. Treat employees badly? You risk having them unionize. I work at a company with no union. I wouldn't want a union. I don't think many people there would. It's like a family. The CEO makes 5x as much as I do, and probably 2x what I'd earn at Google. People are treated fairly, and spend entire careers there. In a perfectly efficient market, companies would operate treating employees at a level /slightly/ better than they would with a union, and there would be no unions. In an inefficient market, you'll have some companies with, and some without.
- beloch 5y agoFirst, size matters. Google and Facebook probably do not have a "family" feeling because they're huge. Growing a company to that size almost always means losing that feeling, as well as adding a host of inefficiencies. Second, society has this strange idea that unions are for blue collar jobs. People think that, if you have a university degree, you don't need a union to represent you. White collar salaries have remained stagnant as a result, and white collar employees may lack avenues to address abuses, such as what occurred at Blizzard, that blue collar workers represented by a union may have. It seems as though people are abandoning this prejudice. Perhaps, once a company is big enough and has a track record of not treating employees well, unionization should be the natural course for its workers, no matter what colour their collars may be. Unions do have a bad reputation for inefficiency, but with remuneration falling behind the pace of inflation while productivity soars ever upwards, is it surprising that workers are starting to feel unions are worth embracing? If Blizzard's employees unionize, you're going to see serious push back against some of the basic facts of game developer life. e.g. Crunch-time. I don't blame Blizzard's execs for being scared right now. They screwed up bad and now they're facing epic consequences.
- teawrecks 5y ago"If we fail" Think that ship sailed.