Kickstarter Accused of 'Union-Busting' After Firing Three Employees (bbc.com) 113
The BBC reports that Kickstarter has been accused of "union-busting" after firing three employees:
Taylor Moore, the company's head of comedy and podcasts, tweeted that he and another employee were fired on Thursday, while tech and design lead Clarissa Redwine was fired last week. All three were heavily involved in the formation of a Kickstarter union this year, Mr Moore added.
Kickstarter confirmed the employees were fired, but denied that it was because of their union activity.
Mr Moore tweeted that he had worked at the company for six years. He said that when Kickstarter fired him they "offered me no real reasons, but one month's severance for signing an NDA" -- a non-disclosure agreement. "I will not be signing it... The union busting campaign that Kickstarter management is engaging in is illegal and wrong," he added.
Kickstarter confirmed the employees were fired, but denied that it was because of their union activity.
Mr Moore tweeted that he had worked at the company for six years. He said that when Kickstarter fired him they "offered me no real reasons, but one month's severance for signing an NDA" -- a non-disclosure agreement. "I will not be signing it... The union busting campaign that Kickstarter management is engaging in is illegal and wrong," he added.
Union-busting ... (Score:3)
... Capitalistic Party tactics.
Re: Unions are monopolies (Score:3)
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It scarcely matters if it’s democratically elected or supposedly responsible to the people. The end result
Re: Unions are monopolies (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Unions are monopolies (Score:2)
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Xanax, when used as directed, is a safe and effective palindrome.
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But somehow they should not have the choice to unionize?
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I have worked for the union (IBEW Texaco) and I've worked for the Company (Mobil Oil).
The power is with the company.
I made more goddam money in the mid 70s in the oil patch than union people make today.
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What about when corporations collude to reduce the price of labor? Bust them up!
Definitely. The penalties were far too low when the no-hire scheme between big Silly Valley companies was discovered.
But do please recognize the modern form of "colluding to reduce the price of labor": open borders, and race-to-the-bottom offshoring.
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He's talking about closed borders in other countries. It's easy to come to the U.S. and get a job, as exemplified by your reference to H-1Bs. Go to China and try the same thing, and see how far you get.
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The very rich love open borders. Never doubt it. Nothing like flooding the labor market with supply to drive down the price and increase the pool of prospective buyers. Plus if you can get costs low enough near the consumer, you con't have to ship stuff around the world.
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Price-reductions are great! Price-gauging is not — simple, eh?
If we, the people, saw fit to block the merger of Staples with OfficeMax [nytimes.com] — for fear of there appearing a monopoly in the market of office supplies, why are we tolerating — indeed, encouraging — monopolies in the fire- and crime-fighting, teaching, and road-construction labor markets, to name just a few?
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Crime-fighting monopolies exist because the government has a monopoly on violence. In fact, that's one of the primary purposes to government - to control violence. Since policing, or any form of legal punishment, are forms of violence (taking, hurting, kidnapping, or killing) they are the rightful domain of the government.
Fire fighting, on the other hand, used to be private. The history of fire companies is actually pretty interesting, and if you really are curious, I suggest you read up on them.
Teaching
Re:Unions are monopolies (Score:4, Insightful)
parent is a moran.
unions exist ENTIRELY because power in corporations is many times stronger than individual (ie, employee) bargaining power.
if companies could JUST be ethical and treat people with respect and pay them a fair wage, we would not need unions.
however, this is not what humanity is like; we need check and balances on power. it CANNOT be entirely owned by one side.
union-busters want the company to have full control over you. never trust union-busters; they are scum.
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Re:Unions are monopolies (Score:4, Insightful)
GM almost went under because it was mismanaged and there was a worldwide financial crisis. Even in the 80s, when GM was squeezing an impressive profit out of unreliable turds, they were moving production to Mexicoâ"because they could make even more profit.
Of course, you can blame the UAW for making a move to Mexico make sense. But when the target profit is always "More," then any reasonable wage for U.S. workers will result in offshoring. Under these circumstances you can't blame auto workers for demanding what they are worth at that point in negotiations.
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I don't doubt you believe this, but why should I believe it?
First, the U.S. still manufactures more than every country on Earth (with the possible exception of China). Granted, the only mammals in the factory are a man and a dog.
Second, several shithole countries like Germany, Japan, France, and South Korea also have unions. Certainly is is possible that the dwindling membership of American unions has given unions homeopathic bargaining strength that forces otherwise well-managed companies to bankrupt thems
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There are indeed some examples of union power abuse, mainly in the USA of the 1930s.
There are however, many many more examples of corporation power abuse towards employees.
Always a disgusting tactic of the powers with vested interests, to point to minor or fake problems and steer people away from focussing at the real problems.
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There is no difference between selling one's labor and selling one's products or services. Indeed, it is not even always easy to tell — is a sushi-chef selling his labor to the restaurant, which then resells the same to you (exploiting him, as Marx would put it)? What if the chef owns the restaurant?
Two such chefs colluding to keep the sushi-prices up are breaking the law [freeadvice.com].
Two carpenters unionizing to the same effect are "heroes of the labor movement".
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Owns what? The sushi?
I do not admit anything. Your statement is not even wrong [wikipedia.org].
I think, we are done here...
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Unions are monopolies and abuse monopoly power exactly the same as any other kind of monopoly power. Corporations, and even sole proprietorships, almost always have more bargaining power than an indivdual employee. Unions, however, turned out not to be a good solution to the problem, merely creating two sides each with the power to abuse the other.
There's a great opening in the economic system for a better solution, but sadly no-one seems genuinely interested in solving the problem.
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It should be obvious that unions do not have monopoly power in the relevant market because the labor market for many, many jobs is global.
However, large companies do have something like monopoly power for jobs because jobs are mostly local.
Put another way, it is easier to send $60k to India to get a skilled worker than it is for a skilled worker to move where they can live well on $60k. This is one of the power imbalances that unions seek to address.
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But monopolies controlled by violent thugs are OK as long as they donate sufficiently to Democratic party candidates. Hence why legislation in the United States is very union-friendly. If a majority of workers vote to unionize, the employer can do NOTHING about it.
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Corporations aren't the only people, in US law. (Score:2)
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Union activity ... (Score:2)
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Not necessarily unfair, but it's a change of the contract so being fired is a natural result. Go to a company that does like unions, like GM or Ford, they're doing pretty well.
Re: Union activity ... (Score:3)
Re: Union activity ... (Score:2)
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Which is why unions fight against efforts to hold free and fair elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Not necessarily unfair, but it's a change of the contract so being fired is a natural result. Go to a company that does like unions, like GM or Ford, they're doing pretty well.
I have never understood why it is natural and desirable that companies should be able to abuse their employees at will but why it is a dreadful blasphemy for employees to organise to defend against it. If employers insist on treating their employees like garbage they have to get used to the fact that eventually their employees will reward them for that by organising and giving the abusive employer a dose of his own medicine. That is how hominids have dealt with bullies for millions of years.
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Of course, the employer has no say in weather an employee has insurance against anything. And the employer does not need to be informed if the employee has taken out an insurance policy. They just find out about
Re:Union activity ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Go to a company that does like unions, like GM or Ford, they're doing pretty well.
This being the internet, I have no idea whether this was sarcastic. GM went bankrupt due to union pension costs. Ford avoided bankruptcy through clever union busting: moving manufacturing gradually to Mexico, then moving it back to very automated factories in the US.
But perhaps that's a "whooshing" sound I hear?
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if your claim that "GM went bankrupt due to union pensions costs" is true you'd have to show 2 things.
I don't have to show anything, it's common knowledge. GM workers weren't getting paid more than non-union workers, on average, but the pension costs were immense. It was the camel that broke the straw's back.
When Obama broke all law and tradition to shaft GM bond holders, it was to take all available GM assets to keep the pensions funded as best as possible. Seems like a dirty trick to play on the non-GM retirees with GM bonds in their pension funds, but I guess the votes to be bought worked out well for
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They also have lots of factories in right-to-work States in the South.
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I guess 'going bankrupt' means "getting rid of those uppity workers"
That which cannot be paid, will not be paid. If "uppity workers", or confused governments, force a business to operate at a loss, bankruptcy is just a matter of time.
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You're really very dumb.
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They should start a Kickstarter (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously though, this is why we need laws to protect Unionization.
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Seriously though, this is why we need laws to protect Unionization.
I don't understand why Americans insist on doing things in halves. You pass regulation to protect your rights to sue, you ask for laws to protect your rights to unionise. Why not actually do something sane and pass laws that protect workers directly and then forgo the stupid middleman.
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You appear to be confused. I was addressing the style of *desired* law, not what you even get. Even if corporations pass laws (fat chance getting union protection there), the OP is still asking for laws that protect unions rather than laws that protect workers.
Lots of us want to do both (Score:2)
Who says we don't have such laws (Score:1)
Why not actually do something sane and pass laws that protect workers directly
So what law do you imagine the U.S. does not already have to protect workers?
The U.S. has laws out the wazoo to protect workers - both federal and state.
This is exactly why unions have such trouble now, because it's an open question if there's really a great reason for anyone to be in one anymore. I totally agree at one point they were useful but these days I don't see the point. All th modern unions seem to cause a lot more har
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So what law do you imagine the U.S. does not already have to protect workers?
You've got to be fucking joking right? The USA's worker protections are a practical joke compared with most western countries. You rely on unions and arbitration every step of the way. You have complicated legal processes to go through to cover even minor things such as unfair dismissal or workplace harassment. Retaliation for using benefits is rife in much of the country. And that is providing you don't work in an "at-will" state where instead they will just fire you for no reason what so ever.
Step one is
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Yes, I know you're joking, but Kickstarter wouldn't care if the union-funding project succeeded or failed. They just want their cut of the money. That's why I find it so hard to laugh at Kickstarter.
So does anyone know of a crowdfunding website that actually earns their percentage by working for the success of the funded projects? I think it would require up-front support in preparing good project proposals and post-project evaluation of the results.
Re: Poor performers (Score:2)
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Every company I've worked for that was in the process of unionizing was doing so because a few people felt their job threatened by their poor performance. They are the ones that initiated it because they thought if they did they would keep their jobs. But bringing in a union is time consuming and takes time; this usually didn't help them enough and they got fired before the union was in.
How many companies and how many people?
He's probably the kind of guy who proves how productive and loyal he is to the company by gladly working 6 un-paid hours extra every day including weekends in the hopes that eventually some of the crumbs from his master's table with trickle down to him.
Re:Poor performers (Score:5, Interesting)
cops have unions.
(parent's brain explodes)
we must therefore conclude that the cop unions are there to protect the bad performers.
hey, wait, this logic actually works, here. interesting.
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Cops have unions, we must therefore conclude that the cop unions are there to protect the bad performers. Hey, wait, this logic actually works, here. Interesting.
Same goes for teachers.
head of comedy and podcasts (Score:5, Interesting)
Didn't see that coming (Score:2)
Who knew that a dot-com's Head of Comedy would be disposable?
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Discussing pay at work.. (Score:2)
And yet nearly everyone I know works at a company with this policy in place.
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and yet I'm talked to people who say one of the rules is that we can't talk about how much this job pays.
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Maybe (Score:3)
Maybe he was just fired because Kickstarter decided they didn't need a head of comedy and podcasts.
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Maybe he was the CSR for the customers setting up comedy- or podcast-related kickstarter entries?
two sides to every story (Score:3, Interesting)
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Maybe Kickstarter just realised they had someone whose position was titled Head of Comedy and Podcasts and just sought to correct this practical joke gone wrong.
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Maybe Kickstarter just realised they had someone whose position was titled Head of Comedy and Podcasts and just sought to correct this practical joke gone wrong.
Ditto. I saw that title and thought "really"?
Things that unions do... (Score:4, Informative)
Unions do far more than negotiate a fairer distribution of the profits generated by workers' labour & better pension funds for retirees. That is instead of more of the profits going to shareholders who gamble on Wall St. & destabilise whole economic systems. They also:
Basically, unions help/force management to do their jobs better so that everyone benefits, not just the shareholders.
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Why aren't you capable of negotiating better compensation yourself? If you think your co-workers aren't paid enough compared to your salary there's nothing stopping you from redistributing part of your pay top them. What gives you the right to force the rest of us to redistribute a portion of our salaries?
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What gives you the right to force the rest of us to redistribute a portion of our salaries?
The right is granted by collective bargaining.
What said a portion of your salary was being forcefully redistributed?
No one forced you to work in a unionized environment. You're free to negotiate a position and salary elsewhere if you don't wish to work in one.
Others believe they have better negotiating power being part of a collective bargaining unit. They have the legal right to do so.
You believe what you want. Others will believe what they want. There isn't a one size fits all solution. That's part of
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It may make sense to work together, when sharing the same interests as employees, with an entity, the employer, that can use many lawyers and other professionals to do the negotiating.
As long as you are young and have a talent that happens to be in demand, it may seem easy to negotiate for yourself. But that is not the case for most people. Why would they not be justified in collaborating to prevent an unequal fight?
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So really unions in the USA do the things that governments do in most sane countries? Got it.
FREEDOM (Score:1)
People should have the freedom to work for companies.
People should have the freedom to quit working for companies.
People should have the freedom to quit working for companies and start competing companies.
Companies should have the freedom to require NDAs and non-competes.
Employees should have the freedom to not sign NDAs and non-competes.
Companies should have the freedom to fire people.
Employees should have the freedom to go on strike or join a union.
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Technically everyone does have this freedom, BUT, not everyone has marketable skills.
Or maybe there has been a huge worldwide economical downturn and jobs are just fucking hard to come by.
A lot of slashdot people are IT related, or at the least technical. At the moment those jobs are easy to find.
The "head of comedy and podcasts"......
Yeah, my cat can do that.
Finding out you are about to be retrenched and then forming a union and screaming
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I've got friends who are dead because the market doesn't fix itself. Companies like to think that they have the freedom to kill workers, customers and third parties without retribution. Trade unions are a powerful tool for preventing that, particularly when company lawyers will try to terrorise the families of the dead and injured to prevent them from suing effectively. When the difference in company liability is on the order of a thousand-fold, the lawyers get very threatenin
Re: Seems logical to me (Score:3)
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If you are spending a lot of your time organizing a union, it seems natural your job performance would be suffering. It could be as simple as that.
You do know that you can do stuff after work, right?
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Re: Seems logical to me (Score:3)
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If you have agreed to answering emails, texts, calls, and work outside 9-5 then that is your problem. Nobody is forcing you to. Find another job, or preferably another career.
I used to work at a Telco. One day somebody on the upper floors drew the magic cost-cutting sword from its stone and decided to fire the entire Windows server guys except one. After a while this guy starts getting calls at all hours of the night, he's not on-call and not getting paid for it. Finally he shows up in the Unix department to ask us what our arrangement is. We tell him we have on-call pay and we tell him to ask for on-call pay. The guns on the upper floors refuse. We tell him to turn off his phon
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Unions can, and do a lot of good.
But here is the BUT. Where I live some of the unions have gone on mass strikes because a company was in financial difficulty and wanted to cut jobs.
NO ONE MUST LOSE THEIR JOB!
Which is all nice and lovely, so the company limps along for another month or three hoping things will turn around, but it doesn't, and the entire company closes.
Now none of them have a job. Including the union.
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If you are spending a lot of your time organizing a union, it seems natural your job performance would be suffering. It could be as simple as that.
No idea why you were modded down for stating the obvious, which is the first place my mind went for other alternatively obvious reasons - a pro union person at a tech company is undoubtedly one of the laziest sacks in the office and most likely fired for being a lazy sack, which is undoubtedly at the heart of their need to unionize.
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Unless you meant something else, in that case when you are done "whipping your house boy" and have cleaned up the mess, you can leave a reasoned argument.
Considering it's such a small "house boy" it shouldn't take long.