13 ms·

Fastmail Employees Form a Union

193 points by tiffanyh 3y ago

superduty 3y ago
[flagged]
- mattl 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - jedberg 3y ago
    Because if an employer already treats you well it just adds unneeded bureaucracy. I'm a big fan of unions, but I'm also a big fan of treating employees well. I would hope that my employees would never feel the need to unionize because I already hear their feedback and give them the benefits they want. Unions create an adversarial relationship between labor and management. That shouldn't be necessary if labor and management are already allies.
    - Scoundreller 3y ago
      > Unions create an adversarial relationship between labor and management Isn’t there still an adversarial relationship between non-union labor and management? So the story goes: Management wants to pay as little as possible for the most work and labor wants to get paid as much as possible for the least amount of work?
      - jedberg 3y ago
        > Management wants to pay as little as possible for the most work and labor wants to get paid as much as possible for the least amount of work? Well for example, at Netflix, management specifically paid extra for good labor and offered interesting problems, and in return we did extra work because we were motivated by the interesting problems and the great co-workers. And at Google back in the day, they gave significantly more benefits than necessary to attract great talent. So no, I'd say it's possible to create a non-adversarial workplace. The trick is keeping it that way as it grows, which is usually when unions come in.
        otachack 3y ago
        What about Netflix's practice of using an employee until they aren't of any use then disposing them? A practice that applied to an employee that helped draft it? https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/inside-netflixs-notorious-firing-practices/322424 https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/inside-netflixs-n... Or how, when the pandemic hit, people realized even with all the perks a Google/Apple campus gives you it was still preferable to stay at home, or even move to a more preferable place, and avoid the tour bus commute? Not to mention the lack of transparency in pay which will stagger individual negotiation efforts when employers apply, or attempt to apply, a WFH tax.
    - KittenInABox 3y ago
      Unfortunately management and labor have never really been allies. Even at companies I super, super love to work at and treat their workers well.. they still will do things like shocking layoffs directly from the board-- because the board doesn't care even if my manager and manager's manager etc. does.
    - coldpie 3y ago
      Regardless of how adversarial it is, all work relationships are contractual negotiations. Without a union, one side of the equation has a boatload of money and expertise, and the other side is... you. Unions are about balancing that equation.
      - jedberg 3y ago
        Sometimes employers use that money and expertise for good by figuring out ways to get employees extra benefits, for example inventing the 10 year option, which costs the company more but is better for the employee. When two people who get along negotiate a contract they don't need lawyers if they aren't trying to take advantage of the other party.
        ath3nd 3y ago
        Corporations are not people.
        coldpie 3y ago
        > Sometimes employers use that money and expertise for good by figuring out ways to get employees extra benefits A union doesn't prevent that. With a union, the employees have the power and expertise to have a say in those improvements too, instead of being at the whims of their bosses. > When two people who get along negotiate a contract they don't need lawyers I don't really know how to respond to this... above like five employees, every employment contract is drafted by a lawyer. My employment agreement at the big company I work for now is many dozens of pages long. I tried reading it, but it's just not my area. With a union, I would know that someone on "my side" of the table, who I pay and who works for me, has had a hand in drafting it.
    - chrismorgan 3y ago
      And in the case of Fastmail, it’s already an employee-owned business (not sure on the AU/US split from the Fastmail/Pobox merge, but I believe that all shareholders are employees except one who is a brother of an employee). As a former employee of Fastmail (AU, 2017–2020), I’m a bit puzzled by this, and curious about it.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - mrweasel 3y ago
    Because they shouldn't start their own union. Unions are across companies, having a single union for a single company doesn't make much sense. Take the UAW, they don't just cover General Motor, they cover all workers in that sector, giving them more power and influence. It's the same with a Star Bucks union, that's silly and not cost effective. You have a "restaurants (and cafe's)"- union. Take McDonalds, they have an agreement with a union in Denmark, 3F. 3F covers fast food staff, construction workers, factory workers, paramedics and many more. They are hugely powerful.
    - pseudalopex 3y ago
      The Fastmail workers formed a local branch of the Communications Workers of America.
      - mrweasel 3y ago
        Oh, perfect then... nevermind.
  - otachack 3y ago
    There's a very strong, anti-union sentiment in HN IMO as it's contrary to the "bootstrapping" image venture capitalist that drives so much here. But if fellow readers put aside any resentment and look at it objectively: we prosper in ways due to past unions, and hopefully see it as a tool to push back on broken hiring/firing processes, at the least. Low hanging fruit: We all think we are strong or can bounce back to a new job easily. What happens when we cross that line of ageism we hear about often? Not everyone is going to be able to retire in their 40s/50s. A union can push back in this practice. What about not being granted lengthy paternal leave to spend with new family members and the state you reside in doesn't offer assurances? What about the lengthy contracts we all fool ourselves into signing, thinking the companies won't come after us as long as we treat and be treated as "part of the family" and we leave it to luck and withstand unfair practices to not rock the boat? We even tell ourselves "HR is not our friend, they are there to protect the company" and in the same breath say "unions are useless" Like I've been hearing: It's better to start and be in a union when you don't need one.
- righthand 3y ago
  Because software workers should start looking to form unions as large companies take to stagnate wages with large hire/layoff cycles that flood the employment market.
  - nightski 3y ago
    You can't unionize your way to a better economy, that's not how that works.
    - righthand 3y ago
      It’s not about unionizing to a better economy, it’s about protecting workers and preventing c-suite from making irresponsible decisions. Wage negotiation is just a benefit.
      - sundaeofshock 3y ago
        Taking money out of the C-Suite and putting it in the pockets of workers is better for the economy.
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      You can unionize your way to a bigger share of the profits, and better working conditions.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - ath3nd 3y ago
      You actually can! If the government doesn't protect your wages, you are left at the mercy and greed of capital. I can guarantee you that means you will be thrown under the bus the first opportunity they see fit, as soon as it makes a financial sense. Look at the avalanche of layoffs that started with Twitter. Now the market is flooded with engineers, which makes our individual bargaining position worse. Employers notice this, and decide to stagnate your wages, saying: "well, there are many unemployed people that will be glad to be hired, just be happy you still have a job". All of this is happening in the background of them racking in record profits and awarding their c-suite tremendous bonuses. And you are supposed to be grateful for the scraps. Does that seem fair? The government is too slow and pressured by lobbyists to act, and you are on your own. By the way, the current cost of living crisis and the insane levels of inflation were both caused by the corporations' greed and the government's inability (or incentives to turn a blind eye) to curb them. The mega corps used every excuse under the sun to increase their prices AND to fire people: bad macroeconomic situations, the wars in Ukraine/Palestine, high price of energy, and in that way they drove inflation up and unemployment up (thereby reducing the cost of labor). But when it comes to your salary, they don't care, as if you yourself are not impacted by inflation or layoffs. Luckily, with unions, together, we are strong, and can at least partially retaliate to corporate greed. If anything, it's the unions that can bring the economy back, by allowing a reasonable salary for their middle class members. Thereby they are keeping funds within the country and not allowing the funds to be diverted towards the 1%'s offshore accounts. This is why, contrary to what you claimed, you can unionize to a fairer, better economy, and this is EXACTLY how it works. Great for Fastmail employees!
tshirthoodie 3y ago
Union-made email! Love to see it! :) I already loved using Fastmail but this makes me the #1 fanboy.
mfer 3y ago
Unions are fascinating to me. When you are in a Union, part of your money goes to the union in order to, hopefully, make things better for you. This means the relationship between Union leadership and the Union members is just as important as between Union leadership and the company. Historically, we have seen Unions bring things like worker safety to the forefront and do numerous things to help people out. More recently we have seen more of a mixed bag. For example, I was recently talking with someone where the Union negotiated pay/benefits they got was less (before and after union dues) than the surrounding non-union competition. Note, I'm not saying I'm pro or against unions. Just that they are fascinating to look at and what you see can be nuanced.
- haolez 3y ago
  Unions are really powerful in corrupt and underdeveloped countries. Correlation is not causation, but still, it's frustrating for workers in those regions.
  - EdwardDiego 3y ago
    Like, Australia?
    - haolez 3y ago
      Brazil has more than 10 thousand unions. There is a union for union workers. Welcome to the underdeveloped world :)
  - niels8472 3y ago
    The least corrupt countries per the corruption perceptions index also (mostly) have strong unions. Danmark and Finland topping the list have 70% membership.
    - hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
      US-Finland expat here, and yes, I quite like my union. But I especially like my unemployment fund: 100 euros a year gets me 50% of my pre-tax salary for a year if I lose or leave my job. Unemployment insurance plans seem underrated in general by FTEs, both in the US and elsewhere. Without it, your ability to exercise both halves of "voice or exit" in the corporate world are severely curtailed. Like life insurance, it's relatively hard to game as a policy - it's usually pretty clear when you lose your salaried job, just like it's usually pretty clear when you die. I see few downsides, especially if you live cheap enough to pay all of your bills on that X% of your income anyway.
Freak_NL 3y ago
As a Fastmail customer: great! More power to them. If anything, any negative reaction by Fastmail, the corporation will act as a signal for me to start thinking about moving away. You know a company is morally bankrupt if they fight their employees unionizing. I don't think Fastmail will do that though.
- thadt 3y ago
  As a Fastmail customer (and software developer who is unfamiliar with how unions would/will work in this space), why would I not already be concerned? My first impression is "man, they must not be treating their employees that well if they decided they needed to bring in a third party to help them negotiate." However - I'm not well versed in this area and willing to learn - why is this a 'good' sign?
  - coldpie 3y ago
    Unions don't always indicate there is a problem in need of solving. It's just a group of employees agreeing to bargain collectively with their employer, which helps balance out the negotiation power between employees and the employer and creates a stable, well-defined employment relationship.
    - tobyjsullivan 3y ago
      I struggle to imagine a scenario where employees would unionize despite already feeling like they are treated fairly. The union/employer relationship is inherently hostile. The whole idea is that unionized employees can threaten production/profits as negotiation leverage. Choosing that path means the employees have already given up on cooperation based on goodwill. It must take a very sour relationship to reach that point.
      - 8ytecoder 3y ago
        That’s a very US centric view. It’s quite common to join unions in most European countries. It does not indicate mistreatment at all. In the US, unionisation happens when all else has failed.
elektor 3y ago
Congrats to the team! This might be the reminder I needed to finally subscribe. Gmail’s spam filter has been nonexistent for the past month (300+ clearly spammy email reaching my inbox).
- jmcphers 3y ago
  I'm a happy Fastmail customer, but I would not recommend them on the basis of their spam filter. It's competent but makes at least a few mistakes a week. Google's was better for me.
  - tumult 3y ago
    I had the opposite experience. Gmail's filter was useless, letting in tons of spam, and then putting normal emails from family members, also using gmail, and who I have emailed many times in the past, into spam. Fastmail's is drastically better for me.
  - massysett 3y ago
    For me Gmail takes way too much legitimate email and sends it to spam. Fastmail strikes a better balance by sending little ham into the spam box, but letting a little bit of spam into the inbox.
  - fodkodrasz 3y ago
    for me both are far better than o365, which even marked legit business mail (o365 invoices :)) from microsoft itsef as spam! I'm generally content with fastmail, but the webmail would need some polish. (and by polish I do not mean the user hostile react rewrites MS and Google are pushing)
    - 8372049 3y ago
      What are you unhappy about with the webmail?
      - fodkodrasz 3y ago
WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
Is there a reaction from the Fastmail corporate to this?
- coldpie 3y ago
  This is a good question, no idea why it's been downvoted. Will Fastmail recognize the union?
oldpersonintx 3y ago
Customer since 2006. As long as I don't get a crazy price hike (Fastmail ain't cheap as it is) or have any degraded service...more power to them
mvexel 3y ago
LinkedIn says Fastmail has 116 U.S. based employees. I may be completely off base here, but if you're that small an org and employees feel the need to form a union, wouldn't that indicate a significant problem with company culture?
- morvita 3y ago
  There's power in bargaining as a collective, whether you're a collective of ten or ten thousand. Either way, it helps with the power imbalance between employees and management.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    There's also cost in coordination and agility--this is fundamentally true of any new bureaucracy, company, system or process. I'm reading this as a sign of cultural stress unless we have evidence to the contrary. (EDIT: I didn't realise Fastmail has almost 1,000 employees, with many remote. That comes closer to where structure is merited, though I'd still argue that this points to dysfunction in the U.S.-HQ bridge given only the Americans are unionizing.)
    - zbyte64 3y ago
      The kind of coordination that requires less representation does not have your interests in mind.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > kind of coordination that requires less representation does not have your interests in mind Take this to an extreme: a start-up. A union is overly bureaucratic. I’d wager a union doesn’t start making sense until the lowest-ranking employee ceases to have on-demand access to senior management.
        givemeethekeys 3y ago
        That's quite small. Having worked at a few companies in the 30-50 employee mark, while it is true that I could speak to management almost any time, it was also obvious that they were very busy.
justinzollars 3y ago
[flagged]
- justinzollars 3y ago
  [flagged]
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    Excuse my age but what are "base people"?
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - pvg 3y ago
        Downvote to disagree is a perfectly fine thing to do on HN and not a sign of anyone's depravity.
        carlosjobim 3y ago
        Down voting for disagreement is base behaviour. Of course nothing is stopping somebody from being base on HN, neither in real life. We've all met our fair share of rude and ignorant people. They're not going anywhere.
        pvg 3y ago
        It isn’t on HN, it’s how the site functions and always has.
        tptacek 3y ago
pjs_ 3y ago
Love FastMail! Long may it live!
sneeze-slayer 3y ago
I am a software engineer who used to work in a "unionized" workplace. It was quite nice, and the union would negotiate increases in time off and fight against policy changes that were worse for us. The union leaders were elected every few years (very important IMO) and the union was only within the (rather large) company; there was no affiliation with a larger union.
- Nifty3929 3y ago
  Which country were you in at the time? Union laws vary substantially by country so I think this is relevant to understanding different unions and people's experiences with them.
  - tonfreed 3y ago
    Yeah, I have the choice of about 3 unions where I work, all of which are big unions because there can only be one per industry in Australia. All three have wasted way too much time and members' money on vanity projects that I don't want to join.
    - keep_reading 3y ago
      > there can only be one per industry in Australia That seems hostile and designed to enable corruption
      - illiac786 3y ago
        Don't know about "designed to" but corruption and abuse of power is absolutely a consequence of this, indeed. Almost feel that this was designed to decredibilise unions (which are essential to democracy in my view) because they ended up strongly reassembling mafias: pretending to protect the people while actually only looking out for your own interests...
  - sneeze-slayer 3y ago
    It was Germany. I put the union in quotes because the direct translation is Works Council. I think that some software engineers in Germany are covered by the larger unions like IG Metall and Verdi, but my understanding is mostly for those that work in companies that make physical goods like Mercedes, Siemens, etc.
bwestergard 3y ago
If you're interested in getting organized with your coworkers like this, there are a lot of other tech workers who can provide training and advice. https://code-cwa.org/upcoming-trainings https://code-cwa.org/upcoming-trainings https://collectiveaction.tech/ https://collectiveaction.tech/
nerpderp82 3y ago
Also a Fastmail customer and prounion. I'll be watching this closely. I have been ecstatic about the quality of service. Fingers crossed management does the right thing and retains their customers and employees.
- secretforest 3y ago
  Bron seems like a good CEO. He's come up through the ranks at FM, so hopefully he's fully onboard with the workers. I had an account when they first got off the ground, survived the Opera days, and built their little email empire. I followed Bron and RobN on Twitter and on blogs. If I lived in a place where there was an IT union like the Communications Workers of America union that covered IT people, I'd join. They are in a battle at the moment: https://cwa-union.org/news/cwa-leaders-and-federal-call-center-workers-arrested-while-demanding-good-jobs https://cwa-union.org/news/cwa-leaders-and-federal-call-cent...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - keep_reading 3y ago
    > so hopefully he's fully onboard with the workers If he was the union wouldn't be necessary, right?
    - saghm 3y ago
      Not necessarily; maybe it's worth it to establish the union during good times so that if/when bad times occur later (under a less-friendly CEO) they'll be ready?
dagw 3y ago
Slightly off topic, but could someone explain why employees in the US keep having to form their own union at each company, rather than the employees just joining an existing union? If I wanted to join a union where live, I'd just pick a relevant union, go to their home page, and click 'join'.
- vasco 3y ago
  And then what other than paying the fees? I'm not pro union, but without organizing with your peers in the same company I even see less point. The main aspect that I could see in unionizing is representing the voice of the workers of the company together. If you're alone working with an external entity or if your colleagues all join different ones I can't see any way of it working.
  - tfourb 3y ago
    At least in Germany we have "sectoral bargaining" enshrined in law. The relevant union and the coalition of employers negotiate a deal (sometimes this process involves strike actions, if common ground can not be found initially). This deal automatically applies to all employees in the sector (i.e. metal workers). Some sectors do not have sectoral bargaining but certain unions have agreements with some subset of employers in that sector to have all their workers covered by any deal that is struck. The incentive for employers in those sectors (i.e. automotive) to join these agreements is that desirable employees usually prefer unionized shops, as they have better overall compensation packages and perks. Also they might not want to become the target of strikes. Not directly tied to unionization, workers in companies above a certain size have to be included in decision making (i.e. in public companies worker representatives get board seats) so a pro-union position often has a certain groundswell of support within a shop. For historic reasons, in some sectors union membership is part of the "culture", as well. Historically, unions have had an important role in upwards social mobility, popular education, culture, etc.
- Kalium 3y ago
  Long story very short, history. Unions in the US are organized shop by shop. You can go to a union's homepage and click "JOIN TODAY!" if you wish. It just doesn't create any obligation for your employer to care.
buzzert 3y ago
Does anybody know what motivated the unionization effort? This is relevant to me as a Fastmail customer, because if the employees aren't being treated well that's a very poor reflection of the company.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  I don’t know anything special about it, but I wouldn’t interpret it necessarily as saying anything negative about Fastmail. For example, lots of perfectly nice companies get bough by giant behemoths. For all we know, Fastmail might have perfectly nice management that understands that future owners, rather than them, are the enemy.
  - wharvle 3y ago
    Top-level management doesn't even have to be "the enemy" for a union to be very nice to have—companies of more than like 30 people are gonna have a shitty, abusive middle-manager somewhere and a union gives employees cover to resist their bullshit at far lower personal risk. "No, I won't be (coming in on Sunday/'just doing this one extra thing before leaving after hours'/breaking company policy and legal requirements for safety or waste disposal or whatever), please see [section of union agreement], if you'd like to continue this discussion I can bring in my rep and, as required by policy laid out in [other section of union agreement], your boss, and we can all have a chat about this" will get a lot of abusive pricks to tuck tail and STFU in a hurry, with low risk of effective retaliation.
- _cenw 3y ago
  Fastmail's podcast seems to be pro union, at least for actors: https://www.fastmail.com/digitalcitizen/the-future-of-ai-with-adam-conover/ https://www.fastmail.com/digitalcitizen/the-future-of-ai-wit... I wouldn't read too much into it. Unions are just a counterweight to corporate interests in the best case. The places that union bust out in the open are usually the worst offenders, and Fastmail doesn't seem to be that.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Fastmail is, IIRC, employee owned. A lot of works on employee-ownership (coop or otherwise) suggest using union structure as a mechanism for procedurally protecting workers (both for things like negotiation and for due process purpose for adverse action, etc.) preemptively as a check against problems happening in the top-down the employees-as-owners -> top management -> line management -> employees-as-workers chain, rather than in reaction to problems.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
As a FastMail customer, congrats to their workers on their union.
yyyk 3y ago
Wasn't Fastmail bought from Opera by its employees[0]? I don't get it - they're forming a union to negotiate with themselves? [0] https://www.fastmail.com/blog/exciting-news-fastmail-staff-purchase-the-business-from-opera/ https://www.fastmail.com/blog/exciting-news-fastmail-staff-p...
- tonfreed 3y ago
  It was bought by the core employees here in Melbourne, I don't think the employees in the US have any kind of stake in it
VirusNewbie 3y ago
Does anyone have any resources for stopping unions from being formed? I've started taking steps to join the "Union" at my FAANG, in hopes of sabotaging it. I can't think of anything worse for software developers than having some politically motivated organization to deal with in addition to management. You can see how well unions have gone for software engineers in the past, (Boeing is one example that has a strong union) and compare it to the working conditions of non union places. I understand it's 'en vogue' to support unions as a display of political affiliation, but the evidence is quite strong that it's bad for software engineers.
- ilikehurdles 3y ago
  I could see value in unions in some industries, but I would actively fight against one as a software engineer. I completely agree with the rest of your comment, this has become a new virtue signal, and a way for the worst among us to leech away value and hold us back. But I doubt you’ll get any advice for stopping it here. hn has turned into a midwit reddit when it comes discussion quality. I assume you should be allowed to continue working without joining the union or paying their dues.
- pxc 3y ago
  What are the problems at Boeing which you see as union-related?
- ath3nd 3y ago
  How is it bad to have job security and collective bargaining rights? > I can't think of anything worse for software developers than having some politically motivated organization Unions are not politically motivated. They are a social collective response from workers to counteract the disproportionate power imbalance between employees and corporations. All great advancements in worker rights were done by some kind of collective organized pressure from workers vs employers. > Does anyone have any resources for stopping unions from being formed? Your servility wouldn't help you a thing if your employer decides to go through another round of layoffs. You are just a disposable cog in the machine for them. You could be next, and yet you are trying to disband the only group of people that are incentivised to help you: your fellow workers. It's also within workers full rights to unionize, this is something that your predecessors fought tooth and nail to obtain. Shame on you!
bityard 3y ago
So all of the comments I've seen so far are (predictably) armchair snark from both sides of the political spectrum. Perhaps the reason for this is that there is a very conspicuous lack of information here. For all we _actually_ know, this could be a fake account posting a fake announcement to a fake twitter. 1. Why did the Fastmail employees decide to form a union? Were the working conditions poor? Was the pay below market rate? Abnormal working hours? Not enough vacation or maternal/paternal leave? 2. Has Fastmail released a statement on this? What is their position? 3. Who comprises the leadership of this union? 4. What is the charter or mission of the union? (What are they seeking to accomplish or remedy?) 5. What percentage of Fastmail workers are members of the union? (Does the union have a target membership percentage?) 6. Is the union seeking to renegotiate the employment contracts of its members at this time? If not, are they expecting to in the future? 7. Will it be possible to work at Fastmail in the future without being a union member, or will union membership be (formally or informally) compulsory? 8. Who are the members of the union? (By job type, I mean. Engineers? HR? Janitorial staff? Managers?) 9. Does the union charge dues and how much? 10. Are there union meetings and if so, how often? 11. What action can a union member take if they disagree with a union decision, or the overall direction the union is taking?
- bwestergard 3y ago
  I am going to assume your questions are in good faith. While I know nothing about this specific campaign, I am a member of the union they purport to be joining and have worked on a half-dozen new organizing campaigns. Local 13000 is a real local, and it would make sense for them to be joining it. Most of your questions can be answered by reference to labor law and the union's internal "law" (i.e. the CWA constitution, sector and local bylaws), both of which are available online. Here is what we can say at a high level based on those resources (and in a few instances, my personal experience of the union). #3 - Per CWA guidelines for locals engaged in new organizing, the leadership of the unit will be an organizing committee that represents each work group in the sought bargaining unit. The typical guideline is a committee of at least 20% of the sought unit. The CWA does not go public with new units without at least of 70% of the unit expressing interest in writing ("signing a union card"). #6 - The use of the term "renegotiating" is misleading. Collective bargaining agreements supersede individual employment contracts by definition. Typically, the CWA conducts an election of workers in the unit to choose a bargaining committee, which then bargains with the employer assisted by paid staff and/or lawyers. In any case, the contract must be ratified by a majority vote of the members for CWA to enter into it. Only then would their "employment contracts" be superseded. That said, the overwhelming employment contracts in the united states do not bind the employer in any meaningful way, and are not meaningfully negotiated. Where there are meaningfully bargained contracts, such as in broadcasting or entertainment, union members can and often do allow certain provisions to remain in force, using the union contract to set a floor on conditions. This is very common in Hollywood. #7 - This depends a great deal on where Fastmail conducts its business in a legal sense, and is a somewhat unsettled area of law with increasing relevance due to remote work. In the United States, unions have a "duty of fair representation" to represent every member of their unit, have basic democratic processes, etc. This is typical in democratic countries. It is also typical for union members to equally share the cost of running the union to ensure that there is no free-riding. In the United States, federal law mandates that unions have a duty of fair representation, but some state laws allow people to avoid paying their share of the costs of that representation. These so-called "right to work laws" were proposed in response specifically to African American workers in the South seeking to form unions that could not be undermined by free-riding (cf. the Memphis Sanitation Strike). #8 - The union may propose any unit. The employer may challenge that unit. If challenged, the National Labor Relations Board determines whether the workers in the unit represent a "community of interest." This standard evolves constantly as successive administrations appoint members of the National Labor Relations Board. #9 - This is determined by the executive board of the local, which is elected by members according to procedures in the local bylaws. In some locals, this will be a fixed amount; in others, it will be a fraction of gross income. I pay 1.67% of my overall income in dues and saw a raise substantially greater than that when we ratified our first contract. Some members saw raises as high as 10%. #10 - See the bylaws for meetings in the local. The unit meetings would generally be organized by the elected bargaining committee, and then by stewards. All locals of the CWA will have a business meeting monthly, but individual units (i.e. groups of workers at a given company) typically meet more often and delegate someone to go to meetings of bodies representing larger groups. Activity in unions is, generally speaking, highly uneven. In my unit, there is some sort of union discussion in our slack daily. Tech worker units are, as a rule, more active than those in other fields. #11 - See the local bylaws, sector, and international bylaws, which lay out a comprehensive system of elected offices, delegation of democratic authority. The primary recourse is to petition their elected officers/stewards, many of whom will be their immediate peers and have an interest in maintaining good relationships. Failing that, they can support the candidacy of new officers in regular elections. Failing that, they can run themselves. Outside the elective process, all officers are bound by the decisions of collective bodies like the local's executive board (which are recorded in meeting minutes all members have the right to access). Major decisions about union policy go to a vote of delegates to the international convention (there was one last year), many of whom are rank and file members. If any officer (or member) violates the the bylaws, the CWA has procedures (laid out in the links below) that allow members to bring up officers up on charges. Charges are ultimately evaluated by juries with rank and file representation. Finally, under some circumstances there could be appeal through the courts under federal laws like the Labor Management Relations Act and Labor Management Reporting Act. Local Bylaws: https://www.cwalocal13000.org/_files/ugd/5e3432_517e9a7e2c714d78bc00b4a3cd6ba8ff.pdf https://www.cwalocal13000.org/_files/ugd/5e3432_517e9a7e2c71... CWA Constitution: https://cwa-union.org/for-locals/cwa-constitution https://cwa-union.org/for-locals/cwa-constitution
seiferteric 3y ago
Question, do individual merit pay increases or bonuses exist in unionized software shops?
- bluGill 3y ago
  A bonus can exist. The contract has to allow them. Generally individual merit pay isn't allowed though which is why so many in tech are against unions: we believe that some people are better than others and thus worth more.
Kab1r 3y ago
This is a huge win for the industry. I'm glad to see unions emerge in American tech
tivert 3y ago
I thought Fastmail was Australian? This looks like it's a US-based union. How big is Fastmail's employee presence in the US? Just a handful, or a major chunk of their operations?
cfinnberg 3y ago
It's interesting to see that a thing that doesn't deserve a second look in some places of the world, it's news and generate debate in others :D
SergeAx 3y ago
I wonder what an IT company personnel going on strike looks like. Is it legal to turn off servers, for example?

193 points by tiffanyh 3y ago

superduty 3y ago

[flagged]

mattl 3y ago
[flagged]
- jedberg 3y ago
  Because if an employer already treats you well it just adds unneeded bureaucracy. I'm a big fan of unions, but I'm also a big fan of treating employees well. I would hope that my employees would never feel the need to unionize because I already hear their feedback and give them the benefits they want. Unions create an adversarial relationship between labor and management. That shouldn't be necessary if labor and management are already allies.
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    > Unions create an adversarial relationship between labor and management Isn’t there still an adversarial relationship between non-union labor and management? So the story goes: Management wants to pay as little as possible for the most work and labor wants to get paid as much as possible for the least amount of work?
    - jedberg 3y ago
      > Management wants to pay as little as possible for the most work and labor wants to get paid as much as possible for the least amount of work? Well for example, at Netflix, management specifically paid extra for good labor and offered interesting problems, and in return we did extra work because we were motivated by the interesting problems and the great co-workers. And at Google back in the day, they gave significantly more benefits than necessary to attract great talent. So no, I'd say it's possible to create a non-adversarial workplace. The trick is keeping it that way as it grows, which is usually when unions come in.
      - otachack 3y ago
        What about Netflix's practice of using an employee until they aren't of any use then disposing them? A practice that applied to an employee that helped draft it? https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/inside-netflixs-notorious-firing-practices/322424 https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/inside-netflixs-n... Or how, when the pandemic hit, people realized even with all the perks a Google/Apple campus gives you it was still preferable to stay at home, or even move to a more preferable place, and avoid the tour bus commute? Not to mention the lack of transparency in pay which will stagger individual negotiation efforts when employers apply, or attempt to apply, a WFH tax.
  - KittenInABox 3y ago
    Unfortunately management and labor have never really been allies. Even at companies I super, super love to work at and treat their workers well.. they still will do things like shocking layoffs directly from the board-- because the board doesn't care even if my manager and manager's manager etc. does.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    Regardless of how adversarial it is, all work relationships are contractual negotiations. Without a union, one side of the equation has a boatload of money and expertise, and the other side is... you. Unions are about balancing that equation.
    - jedberg 3y ago
      Sometimes employers use that money and expertise for good by figuring out ways to get employees extra benefits, for example inventing the 10 year option, which costs the company more but is better for the employee. When two people who get along negotiate a contract they don't need lawyers if they aren't trying to take advantage of the other party.
      - ath3nd 3y ago
        Corporations are not people.
      - coldpie 3y ago
        > Sometimes employers use that money and expertise for good by figuring out ways to get employees extra benefits A union doesn't prevent that. With a union, the employees have the power and expertise to have a say in those improvements too, instead of being at the whims of their bosses. > When two people who get along negotiate a contract they don't need lawyers I don't really know how to respond to this... above like five employees, every employment contract is drafted by a lawyer. My employment agreement at the big company I work for now is many dozens of pages long. I tried reading it, but it's just not my area. With a union, I would know that someone on "my side" of the table, who I pay and who works for me, has had a hand in drafting it.
  - chrismorgan 3y ago
    And in the case of Fastmail, it’s already an employee-owned business (not sure on the AU/US split from the Fastmail/Pobox merge, but I believe that all shareholders are employees except one who is a brother of an employee). As a former employee of Fastmail (AU, 2017–2020), I’m a bit puzzled by this, and curious about it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- mrweasel 3y ago
  Because they shouldn't start their own union. Unions are across companies, having a single union for a single company doesn't make much sense. Take the UAW, they don't just cover General Motor, they cover all workers in that sector, giving them more power and influence. It's the same with a Star Bucks union, that's silly and not cost effective. You have a "restaurants (and cafe's)"- union. Take McDonalds, they have an agreement with a union in Denmark, 3F. 3F covers fast food staff, construction workers, factory workers, paramedics and many more. They are hugely powerful.
  - pseudalopex 3y ago
    The Fastmail workers formed a local branch of the Communications Workers of America.
    - mrweasel 3y ago
      Oh, perfect then... nevermind.
- otachack 3y ago
  There's a very strong, anti-union sentiment in HN IMO as it's contrary to the "bootstrapping" image venture capitalist that drives so much here. But if fellow readers put aside any resentment and look at it objectively: we prosper in ways due to past unions, and hopefully see it as a tool to push back on broken hiring/firing processes, at the least. Low hanging fruit: We all think we are strong or can bounce back to a new job easily. What happens when we cross that line of ageism we hear about often? Not everyone is going to be able to retire in their 40s/50s. A union can push back in this practice. What about not being granted lengthy paternal leave to spend with new family members and the state you reside in doesn't offer assurances? What about the lengthy contracts we all fool ourselves into signing, thinking the companies won't come after us as long as we treat and be treated as "part of the family" and we leave it to luck and withstand unfair practices to not rock the boat? We even tell ourselves "HR is not our friend, they are there to protect the company" and in the same breath say "unions are useless" Like I've been hearing: It's better to start and be in a union when you don't need one.
righthand 3y ago
Because software workers should start looking to form unions as large companies take to stagnate wages with large hire/layoff cycles that flood the employment market.
- nightski 3y ago
  You can't unionize your way to a better economy, that's not how that works.
  - righthand 3y ago
    It’s not about unionizing to a better economy, it’s about protecting workers and preventing c-suite from making irresponsible decisions. Wage negotiation is just a benefit.
    - sundaeofshock 3y ago
      Taking money out of the C-Suite and putting it in the pockets of workers is better for the economy.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    You can unionize your way to a bigger share of the profits, and better working conditions.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - ath3nd 3y ago
    You actually can! If the government doesn't protect your wages, you are left at the mercy and greed of capital. I can guarantee you that means you will be thrown under the bus the first opportunity they see fit, as soon as it makes a financial sense. Look at the avalanche of layoffs that started with Twitter. Now the market is flooded with engineers, which makes our individual bargaining position worse. Employers notice this, and decide to stagnate your wages, saying: "well, there are many unemployed people that will be glad to be hired, just be happy you still have a job". All of this is happening in the background of them racking in record profits and awarding their c-suite tremendous bonuses. And you are supposed to be grateful for the scraps. Does that seem fair? The government is too slow and pressured by lobbyists to act, and you are on your own. By the way, the current cost of living crisis and the insane levels of inflation were both caused by the corporations' greed and the government's inability (or incentives to turn a blind eye) to curb them. The mega corps used every excuse under the sun to increase their prices AND to fire people: bad macroeconomic situations, the wars in Ukraine/Palestine, high price of energy, and in that way they drove inflation up and unemployment up (thereby reducing the cost of labor). But when it comes to your salary, they don't care, as if you yourself are not impacted by inflation or layoffs. Luckily, with unions, together, we are strong, and can at least partially retaliate to corporate greed. If anything, it's the unions that can bring the economy back, by allowing a reasonable salary for their middle class members. Thereby they are keeping funds within the country and not allowing the funds to be diverted towards the 1%'s offshore accounts. This is why, contrary to what you claimed, you can unionize to a fairer, better economy, and this is EXACTLY how it works. Great for Fastmail employees!

tshirthoodie 3y ago

Union-made email! Love to see it! :) I already loved using Fastmail but this makes me the #1 fanboy.

mfer 3y ago

Unions are fascinating to me. When you are in a Union, part of your money goes to the union in order to, hopefully, make things better for you. This means the relationship between Union leadership and the Union members is just as important as between Union leadership and the company. Historically, we have seen Unions bring things like worker safety to the forefront and do numerous things to help people out. More recently we have seen more of a mixed bag. For example, I was recently talking with someone where the Union negotiated pay/benefits they got was less (before and after union dues) than the surrounding non-union competition. Note, I'm not saying I'm pro or against unions. Just that they are fascinating to look at and what you see can be nuanced.

haolez 3y ago
Unions are really powerful in corrupt and underdeveloped countries. Correlation is not causation, but still, it's frustrating for workers in those regions.
- EdwardDiego 3y ago
  Like, Australia?
  - haolez 3y ago
    Brazil has more than 10 thousand unions. There is a union for union workers. Welcome to the underdeveloped world :)
- niels8472 3y ago
  The least corrupt countries per the corruption perceptions index also (mostly) have strong unions. Danmark and Finland topping the list have 70% membership.
  - hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
    US-Finland expat here, and yes, I quite like my union. But I especially like my unemployment fund: 100 euros a year gets me 50% of my pre-tax salary for a year if I lose or leave my job. Unemployment insurance plans seem underrated in general by FTEs, both in the US and elsewhere. Without it, your ability to exercise both halves of "voice or exit" in the corporate world are severely curtailed. Like life insurance, it's relatively hard to game as a policy - it's usually pretty clear when you lose your salaried job, just like it's usually pretty clear when you die. I see few downsides, especially if you live cheap enough to pay all of your bills on that X% of your income anyway.

Freak_NL 3y ago

As a Fastmail customer: great! More power to them. If anything, any negative reaction by Fastmail, the corporation will act as a signal for me to start thinking about moving away. You know a company is morally bankrupt if they fight their employees unionizing. I don't think Fastmail will do that though.

thadt 3y ago
As a Fastmail customer (and software developer who is unfamiliar with how unions would/will work in this space), why would I not already be concerned? My first impression is "man, they must not be treating their employees that well if they decided they needed to bring in a third party to help them negotiate." However - I'm not well versed in this area and willing to learn - why is this a 'good' sign?
- coldpie 3y ago
  Unions don't always indicate there is a problem in need of solving. It's just a group of employees agreeing to bargain collectively with their employer, which helps balance out the negotiation power between employees and the employer and creates a stable, well-defined employment relationship.
  - tobyjsullivan 3y ago
    I struggle to imagine a scenario where employees would unionize despite already feeling like they are treated fairly. The union/employer relationship is inherently hostile. The whole idea is that unionized employees can threaten production/profits as negotiation leverage. Choosing that path means the employees have already given up on cooperation based on goodwill. It must take a very sour relationship to reach that point.
    - 8ytecoder 3y ago
      That’s a very US centric view. It’s quite common to join unions in most European countries. It does not indicate mistreatment at all. In the US, unionisation happens when all else has failed.

elektor 3y ago

Congrats to the team! This might be the reminder I needed to finally subscribe. Gmail’s spam filter has been nonexistent for the past month (300+ clearly spammy email reaching my inbox).

jmcphers 3y ago
I'm a happy Fastmail customer, but I would not recommend them on the basis of their spam filter. It's competent but makes at least a few mistakes a week. Google's was better for me.
- tumult 3y ago
  I had the opposite experience. Gmail's filter was useless, letting in tons of spam, and then putting normal emails from family members, also using gmail, and who I have emailed many times in the past, into spam. Fastmail's is drastically better for me.
- massysett 3y ago
  For me Gmail takes way too much legitimate email and sends it to spam. Fastmail strikes a better balance by sending little ham into the spam box, but letting a little bit of spam into the inbox.
- fodkodrasz 3y ago
  for me both are far better than o365, which even marked legit business mail (o365 invoices :)) from microsoft itsef as spam! I'm generally content with fastmail, but the webmail would need some polish. (and by polish I do not mean the user hostile react rewrites MS and Google are pushing)
  - 8372049 3y ago
    What are you unhappy about with the webmail?
    - fodkodrasz 3y ago

WesolyKubeczek 3y ago

Is there a reaction from the Fastmail corporate to this?

coldpie 3y ago
This is a good question, no idea why it's been downvoted. Will Fastmail recognize the union?

oldpersonintx 3y ago

Customer since 2006. As long as I don't get a crazy price hike (Fastmail ain't cheap as it is) or have any degraded service...more power to them

mvexel 3y ago

LinkedIn says Fastmail has 116 U.S. based employees. I may be completely off base here, but if you're that small an org and employees feel the need to form a union, wouldn't that indicate a significant problem with company culture?

morvita 3y ago
There's power in bargaining as a collective, whether you're a collective of ten or ten thousand. Either way, it helps with the power imbalance between employees and management.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  There's also cost in coordination and agility--this is fundamentally true of any new bureaucracy, company, system or process. I'm reading this as a sign of cultural stress unless we have evidence to the contrary. (EDIT: I didn't realise Fastmail has almost 1,000 employees, with many remote. That comes closer to where structure is merited, though I'd still argue that this points to dysfunction in the U.S.-HQ bridge given only the Americans are unionizing.)
  - zbyte64 3y ago
    The kind of coordination that requires less representation does not have your interests in mind.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > kind of coordination that requires less representation does not have your interests in mind Take this to an extreme: a start-up. A union is overly bureaucratic. I’d wager a union doesn’t start making sense until the lowest-ranking employee ceases to have on-demand access to senior management.
      - givemeethekeys 3y ago
        That's quite small. Having worked at a few companies in the 30-50 employee mark, while it is true that I could speak to management almost any time, it was also obvious that they were very busy.

justinzollars 3y ago

[flagged]

justinzollars 3y ago
[flagged]
carlosjobim 3y ago
[flagged]
- barbazoo 3y ago
  Excuse my age but what are "base people"?
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - pvg 3y ago
      Downvote to disagree is a perfectly fine thing to do on HN and not a sign of anyone's depravity.
      - carlosjobim 3y ago
        Down voting for disagreement is base behaviour. Of course nothing is stopping somebody from being base on HN, neither in real life. We've all met our fair share of rude and ignorant people. They're not going anywhere.
        pvg 3y ago
        It isn’t on HN, it’s how the site functions and always has.
        tptacek 3y ago

pjs_ 3y ago

Love FastMail! Long may it live!

sneeze-slayer 3y ago

I am a software engineer who used to work in a "unionized" workplace. It was quite nice, and the union would negotiate increases in time off and fight against policy changes that were worse for us. The union leaders were elected every few years (very important IMO) and the union was only within the (rather large) company; there was no affiliation with a larger union.

Nifty3929 3y ago
Which country were you in at the time? Union laws vary substantially by country so I think this is relevant to understanding different unions and people's experiences with them.
- tonfreed 3y ago
  Yeah, I have the choice of about 3 unions where I work, all of which are big unions because there can only be one per industry in Australia. All three have wasted way too much time and members' money on vanity projects that I don't want to join.
  - keep_reading 3y ago
    > there can only be one per industry in Australia That seems hostile and designed to enable corruption
    - illiac786 3y ago
      Don't know about "designed to" but corruption and abuse of power is absolutely a consequence of this, indeed. Almost feel that this was designed to decredibilise unions (which are essential to democracy in my view) because they ended up strongly reassembling mafias: pretending to protect the people while actually only looking out for your own interests...
- sneeze-slayer 3y ago
  It was Germany. I put the union in quotes because the direct translation is Works Council. I think that some software engineers in Germany are covered by the larger unions like IG Metall and Verdi, but my understanding is mostly for those that work in companies that make physical goods like Mercedes, Siemens, etc.

bwestergard 3y ago

If you're interested in getting organized with your coworkers like this, there are a lot of other tech workers who can provide training and advice. https://code-cwa.org/upcoming-trainings https://code-cwa.org/upcoming-trainings https://collectiveaction.tech/ https://collectiveaction.tech/

nerpderp82 3y ago

Also a Fastmail customer and prounion. I'll be watching this closely. I have been ecstatic about the quality of service. Fingers crossed management does the right thing and retains their customers and employees.

secretforest 3y ago
Bron seems like a good CEO. He's come up through the ranks at FM, so hopefully he's fully onboard with the workers. I had an account when they first got off the ground, survived the Opera days, and built their little email empire. I followed Bron and RobN on Twitter and on blogs. If I lived in a place where there was an IT union like the Communications Workers of America union that covered IT people, I'd join. They are in a battle at the moment: https://cwa-union.org/news/cwa-leaders-and-federal-call-center-workers-arrested-while-demanding-good-jobs https://cwa-union.org/news/cwa-leaders-and-federal-call-cent...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- keep_reading 3y ago
  > so hopefully he's fully onboard with the workers If he was the union wouldn't be necessary, right?
  - saghm 3y ago
    Not necessarily; maybe it's worth it to establish the union during good times so that if/when bad times occur later (under a less-friendly CEO) they'll be ready?

dagw 3y ago

Slightly off topic, but could someone explain why employees in the US keep having to form their own union at each company, rather than the employees just joining an existing union? If I wanted to join a union where live, I'd just pick a relevant union, go to their home page, and click 'join'.

vasco 3y ago
And then what other than paying the fees? I'm not pro union, but without organizing with your peers in the same company I even see less point. The main aspect that I could see in unionizing is representing the voice of the workers of the company together. If you're alone working with an external entity or if your colleagues all join different ones I can't see any way of it working.
- tfourb 3y ago
  At least in Germany we have "sectoral bargaining" enshrined in law. The relevant union and the coalition of employers negotiate a deal (sometimes this process involves strike actions, if common ground can not be found initially). This deal automatically applies to all employees in the sector (i.e. metal workers). Some sectors do not have sectoral bargaining but certain unions have agreements with some subset of employers in that sector to have all their workers covered by any deal that is struck. The incentive for employers in those sectors (i.e. automotive) to join these agreements is that desirable employees usually prefer unionized shops, as they have better overall compensation packages and perks. Also they might not want to become the target of strikes. Not directly tied to unionization, workers in companies above a certain size have to be included in decision making (i.e. in public companies worker representatives get board seats) so a pro-union position often has a certain groundswell of support within a shop. For historic reasons, in some sectors union membership is part of the "culture", as well. Historically, unions have had an important role in upwards social mobility, popular education, culture, etc.
Kalium 3y ago
Long story very short, history. Unions in the US are organized shop by shop. You can go to a union's homepage and click "JOIN TODAY!" if you wish. It just doesn't create any obligation for your employer to care.

buzzert 3y ago

Does anybody know what motivated the unionization effort? This is relevant to me as a Fastmail customer, because if the employees aren't being treated well that's a very poor reflection of the company.

bee_rider 3y ago
I don’t know anything special about it, but I wouldn’t interpret it necessarily as saying anything negative about Fastmail. For example, lots of perfectly nice companies get bough by giant behemoths. For all we know, Fastmail might have perfectly nice management that understands that future owners, rather than them, are the enemy.
- wharvle 3y ago
  Top-level management doesn't even have to be "the enemy" for a union to be very nice to have—companies of more than like 30 people are gonna have a shitty, abusive middle-manager somewhere and a union gives employees cover to resist their bullshit at far lower personal risk. "No, I won't be (coming in on Sunday/'just doing this one extra thing before leaving after hours'/breaking company policy and legal requirements for safety or waste disposal or whatever), please see [section of union agreement], if you'd like to continue this discussion I can bring in my rep and, as required by policy laid out in [other section of union agreement], your boss, and we can all have a chat about this" will get a lot of abusive pricks to tuck tail and STFU in a hurry, with low risk of effective retaliation.
_cenw 3y ago
Fastmail's podcast seems to be pro union, at least for actors: https://www.fastmail.com/digitalcitizen/the-future-of-ai-with-adam-conover/ https://www.fastmail.com/digitalcitizen/the-future-of-ai-wit... I wouldn't read too much into it. Unions are just a counterweight to corporate interests in the best case. The places that union bust out in the open are usually the worst offenders, and Fastmail doesn't seem to be that.
dragonwriter 3y ago
Fastmail is, IIRC, employee owned. A lot of works on employee-ownership (coop or otherwise) suggest using union structure as a mechanism for procedurally protecting workers (both for things like negotiation and for due process purpose for adverse action, etc.) preemptively as a check against problems happening in the top-down the employees-as-owners -> top management -> line management -> employees-as-workers chain, rather than in reaction to problems.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

As a FastMail customer, congrats to their workers on their union.

yyyk 3y ago

Wasn't Fastmail bought from Opera by its employees[0]? I don't get it - they're forming a union to negotiate with themselves? [0] https://www.fastmail.com/blog/exciting-news-fastmail-staff-purchase-the-business-from-opera/ https://www.fastmail.com/blog/exciting-news-fastmail-staff-p...

tonfreed 3y ago
It was bought by the core employees here in Melbourne, I don't think the employees in the US have any kind of stake in it

VirusNewbie 3y ago

Does anyone have any resources for stopping unions from being formed? I've started taking steps to join the "Union" at my FAANG, in hopes of sabotaging it. I can't think of anything worse for software developers than having some politically motivated organization to deal with in addition to management. You can see how well unions have gone for software engineers in the past, (Boeing is one example that has a strong union) and compare it to the working conditions of non union places. I understand it's 'en vogue' to support unions as a display of political affiliation, but the evidence is quite strong that it's bad for software engineers.

ilikehurdles 3y ago
I could see value in unions in some industries, but I would actively fight against one as a software engineer. I completely agree with the rest of your comment, this has become a new virtue signal, and a way for the worst among us to leech away value and hold us back. But I doubt you’ll get any advice for stopping it here. hn has turned into a midwit reddit when it comes discussion quality. I assume you should be allowed to continue working without joining the union or paying their dues.
pxc 3y ago
What are the problems at Boeing which you see as union-related?
ath3nd 3y ago
How is it bad to have job security and collective bargaining rights? > I can't think of anything worse for software developers than having some politically motivated organization Unions are not politically motivated. They are a social collective response from workers to counteract the disproportionate power imbalance between employees and corporations. All great advancements in worker rights were done by some kind of collective organized pressure from workers vs employers. > Does anyone have any resources for stopping unions from being formed? Your servility wouldn't help you a thing if your employer decides to go through another round of layoffs. You are just a disposable cog in the machine for them. You could be next, and yet you are trying to disband the only group of people that are incentivised to help you: your fellow workers. It's also within workers full rights to unionize, this is something that your predecessors fought tooth and nail to obtain. Shame on you!

bityard 3y ago

So all of the comments I've seen so far are (predictably) armchair snark from both sides of the political spectrum. Perhaps the reason for this is that there is a very conspicuous lack of information here. For all we _actually_ know, this could be a fake account posting a fake announcement to a fake twitter. 1. Why did the Fastmail employees decide to form a union? Were the working conditions poor? Was the pay below market rate? Abnormal working hours? Not enough vacation or maternal/paternal leave? 2. Has Fastmail released a statement on this? What is their position? 3. Who comprises the leadership of this union? 4. What is the charter or mission of the union? (What are they seeking to accomplish or remedy?) 5. What percentage of Fastmail workers are members of the union? (Does the union have a target membership percentage?) 6. Is the union seeking to renegotiate the employment contracts of its members at this time? If not, are they expecting to in the future? 7. Will it be possible to work at Fastmail in the future without being a union member, or will union membership be (formally or informally) compulsory? 8. Who are the members of the union? (By job type, I mean. Engineers? HR? Janitorial staff? Managers?) 9. Does the union charge dues and how much? 10. Are there union meetings and if so, how often? 11. What action can a union member take if they disagree with a union decision, or the overall direction the union is taking?

bwestergard 3y ago
I am going to assume your questions are in good faith. While I know nothing about this specific campaign, I am a member of the union they purport to be joining and have worked on a half-dozen new organizing campaigns. Local 13000 is a real local, and it would make sense for them to be joining it. Most of your questions can be answered by reference to labor law and the union's internal "law" (i.e. the CWA constitution, sector and local bylaws), both of which are available online. Here is what we can say at a high level based on those resources (and in a few instances, my personal experience of the union). #3 - Per CWA guidelines for locals engaged in new organizing, the leadership of the unit will be an organizing committee that represents each work group in the sought bargaining unit. The typical guideline is a committee of at least 20% of the sought unit. The CWA does not go public with new units without at least of 70% of the unit expressing interest in writing ("signing a union card"). #6 - The use of the term "renegotiating" is misleading. Collective bargaining agreements supersede individual employment contracts by definition. Typically, the CWA conducts an election of workers in the unit to choose a bargaining committee, which then bargains with the employer assisted by paid staff and/or lawyers. In any case, the contract must be ratified by a majority vote of the members for CWA to enter into it. Only then would their "employment contracts" be superseded. That said, the overwhelming employment contracts in the united states do not bind the employer in any meaningful way, and are not meaningfully negotiated. Where there are meaningfully bargained contracts, such as in broadcasting or entertainment, union members can and often do allow certain provisions to remain in force, using the union contract to set a floor on conditions. This is very common in Hollywood. #7 - This depends a great deal on where Fastmail conducts its business in a legal sense, and is a somewhat unsettled area of law with increasing relevance due to remote work. In the United States, unions have a "duty of fair representation" to represent every member of their unit, have basic democratic processes, etc. This is typical in democratic countries. It is also typical for union members to equally share the cost of running the union to ensure that there is no free-riding. In the United States, federal law mandates that unions have a duty of fair representation, but some state laws allow people to avoid paying their share of the costs of that representation. These so-called "right to work laws" were proposed in response specifically to African American workers in the South seeking to form unions that could not be undermined by free-riding (cf. the Memphis Sanitation Strike). #8 - The union may propose any unit. The employer may challenge that unit. If challenged, the National Labor Relations Board determines whether the workers in the unit represent a "community of interest." This standard evolves constantly as successive administrations appoint members of the National Labor Relations Board. #9 - This is determined by the executive board of the local, which is elected by members according to procedures in the local bylaws. In some locals, this will be a fixed amount; in others, it will be a fraction of gross income. I pay 1.67% of my overall income in dues and saw a raise substantially greater than that when we ratified our first contract. Some members saw raises as high as 10%. #10 - See the bylaws for meetings in the local. The unit meetings would generally be organized by the elected bargaining committee, and then by stewards. All locals of the CWA will have a business meeting monthly, but individual units (i.e. groups of workers at a given company) typically meet more often and delegate someone to go to meetings of bodies representing larger groups. Activity in unions is, generally speaking, highly uneven. In my unit, there is some sort of union discussion in our slack daily. Tech worker units are, as a rule, more active than those in other fields. #11 - See the local bylaws, sector, and international bylaws, which lay out a comprehensive system of elected offices, delegation of democratic authority. The primary recourse is to petition their elected officers/stewards, many of whom will be their immediate peers and have an interest in maintaining good relationships. Failing that, they can support the candidacy of new officers in regular elections. Failing that, they can run themselves. Outside the elective process, all officers are bound by the decisions of collective bodies like the local's executive board (which are recorded in meeting minutes all members have the right to access). Major decisions about union policy go to a vote of delegates to the international convention (there was one last year), many of whom are rank and file members. If any officer (or member) violates the the bylaws, the CWA has procedures (laid out in the links below) that allow members to bring up officers up on charges. Charges are ultimately evaluated by juries with rank and file representation. Finally, under some circumstances there could be appeal through the courts under federal laws like the Labor Management Relations Act and Labor Management Reporting Act. Local Bylaws: https://www.cwalocal13000.org/_files/ugd/5e3432_517e9a7e2c714d78bc00b4a3cd6ba8ff.pdf https://www.cwalocal13000.org/_files/ugd/5e3432_517e9a7e2c71... CWA Constitution: https://cwa-union.org/for-locals/cwa-constitution https://cwa-union.org/for-locals/cwa-constitution

seiferteric 3y ago

Question, do individual merit pay increases or bonuses exist in unionized software shops?

bluGill 3y ago
A bonus can exist. The contract has to allow them. Generally individual merit pay isn't allowed though which is why so many in tech are against unions: we believe that some people are better than others and thus worth more.

Kab1r 3y ago

This is a huge win for the industry. I'm glad to see unions emerge in American tech

tivert 3y ago

I thought Fastmail was Australian? This looks like it's a US-based union. How big is Fastmail's employee presence in the US? Just a handful, or a major chunk of their operations?

cfinnberg 3y ago

It's interesting to see that a thing that doesn't deserve a second look in some places of the world, it's news and generate debate in others :D

SergeAx 3y ago

I wonder what an IT company personnel going on strike looks like. Is it legal to turn off servers, for example?