4 ms·
I’m pro union and I’m in the tech industry, but it is tone deaf when members of best paid and most well treated of industries speak as if they are oppressed. It
by LastTrain 4y ago
I’m pro union and I’m in the tech industry, but it is tone deaf when members of best paid and most well treated of industries speak as if they are oppressed. It kind of makes a mockery of the plight of the actual working class.
- chasing 4y agoYou don’t have to be oppressed to form a union. Most professional athletes, for example, are unionized. And they’re often very well paid.
- umeshunni 4y agoAlso, Doctors, Actors etc
- LastTrain 4y agoNowhere did I say Bandcamp engineers can't have a union, or even whether it makes good business sense for them. It might, it might not. Maybe this will end up being better for Soundcloud engineers in the long run if you know what I mean. I was reacting to the idea that it somehow furthers the cause of organized labor, it doesn't.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago> I was reacting to the idea that it somehow furthers the cause of organized labor, it doesn't. It absolutely does, by helping to (re)normalize the idea that the employer/union duality is the common, sensible, ubiquitous arrangement.
- abandonliberty 4y agoDon't we call those guilds, associations, academies, etc.? Unions traditionally refer to blue collar/factory work. I don't know what the difference is.
- scaramanga 4y agoNot to mention gladiators i ancient rome, many of whom were paid very well... You're quite right that this is a completely ridiculous argument. A well paid slave, is still a slave.
- LastTrain 4y agoThis is the mockery and tone deafness I was referring to. No, no one at Bandcamp is a slave, and to say so is an insult to people who are. Do you hear yourself? It is the height of privilege to think you are a slave at your well paid, fun engineering job.
- scaramanga 4y agohttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony It is simply risible to pretend that the tech-industry has not created a new generation of piece-workers. Or that conditions cannot be bad (even unacceptable) in a well-paid and otherwise privileged job. Perhaps you simply lack insight to realise that by writing this comment you have become the thing my comment was mocking? :) "You Gladiators, look at the purse awarded to you! And you call yourself a common slave! It is an insult to the slaves who toil in the mines!"
- CircleSpokes 4y agoNothing about forming a union is tone deaf. One doesn't have to be 'oppressed' to form a union. This isn't mocking anything.
- muglug 4y agoI bet the average non-manager wage at Bandcamp is substantially less than the big tech companies (especially given the mix of support staff). Many of them will be putting up with less money so they can work on something they actually believe in, and something that is one of the few tech success stories for musicians.
- thylacine222 4y agoThe working class can't live off your pity, they would much rather have a strong union movement from every sector so we can fight together.
- LastTrain 4y agoPlatitudes won't either. People in true need of a union need actual support. Where you spend your money, who you financially support in politics. They are not on the sidelines cheering the Bandcamp engineers on, they see it for what it is, and know it isn't going to trickle down to them.
- jjj123 4y agoForming a union isn’t a platitude, it’s direct action. In a culture as union-hostile as the modern day US, every new union is a win for the labor movement. I can speak from experience that leftist groups who otherwise hate the tech industry do celebrate tech unions.
- alex_sf 4y agoYou're right, it's not a platitude, but it's entirely performative and diminishes actual labor struggles.
- jamilton 4y agoI don't think it actually, meaningfully diminishes "actual labor struggles". The working class is not going to have a harder time organizing because some tech workers did it first.
- ETH_start 4y agoUnions have won every cultural battle in the US. The only reason union membership declined is that virtually every industry that they got a hold of went bankrupt or severely contracted. A notable exception is Hollywood, and that's only because the nature of movie projects, which are time-limited, reduces the leverage of unionized workers. In the government, where taxpayers pay for growing inefficiency, unions have only grown in strength.
- amrocha 4y agoWe have a lot more in common with the working class than with billionaire CEOs
- chasing 4y agoMost of us are working class, even if relatively well-paid.
- yeahsure22 4y agoYeah buddy you are just like a bus driver…
- amrocha 4y agoYep. I rely on a job for income. My boss has leverage over me. I can't go too long without a job. I don't have a say on what the company works on.
- scaramanga 4y agoNailed it. These are about the conditions of your existence and the dignity of your profession, not how much you are being paid. A worker might get paid $1,000 in compensation every time an executive hits him with a baseball bat, but it doesn't make it okay. You might later increase the payment to $3,000 per blow. But it is still assault, even though that is a lot of money to be earning for a job that anyone can do. https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2010-dec-01-la-fg-south-korea-chaebols-20101201-story.html https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2010-dec-01-la-fg-south...
- LBJsPNS 4y agoHe, and you, are more like a bus driver than you are like any billionaire CEO. Sorry to pop your bubble of imagined superiority.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]