If even a public benefit corporation is going to be scum, we know capitalism is in a real bad spot.
In this Kickstarter case, the employees clearly have issues where a union is called for.
Meanwhile the CEO does point out exactly what can happen and so I get why the mgmt and others aren’t exactly eager to let their shit get rekt by the burden of unionization on top of everything else.
Maybe they can Kickstart some better systems than the traditional union system which fits their model better.
How would they need something outside of a “traditional union system” in order for it to fit better? If they are unable function while treating their employees fairly then they shouldn’t be in business.
Treating employees fairly and implementing a union bureaucracy with the downsides that come with unions are not required by the laws of physics.
I’m pro union vs nothing when employees call for it but also in my experience they have flaws. I’m not exactly eager to join another union in the design field, but I’m definitely more of a freelancer entrepreneurial type personality so the flaws in Union work really clash with how I like to work.
Specifically towards Kickstarter, I guess because in and of itself it is not a strictly creative driven company, but more of a management and web company, a union can probably work good.
But it seems they aren’t factory workers either, and their lifestyle and such is probably that they work various flexible hours and individuals have varying degrees of experience and skills that would not work well in something like fixed pay grades and seniority ranks.
Maybe there are unions where everyone still negotiates their specific roles and salaries and compensation based on what they bring at a given time, and can set their own hours and rose the ranks based on their specific ambitions and how well their departments and teams perform. But that’s not what I’ve experienced or heard of from any union shops in the US.
It’s generally another layer of bureaucracy, run by people who get to feel important in their roles, working within their clique of union stewards and chair people, organizing events no one cares about except those same persons, and by and large it’s never felt like a great system for modern office type work.
I know I went months scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel on purpose just to save my energy and money until I could quit and do my own thing. And I could have kept scraping that bottom of my barrel, and making decent (but not stellar) wages for my entire career, and still the entire time outperformed the senior designers, getting twice my pay simply for their time in service.
So unions, not bad. But not flawless and maybe there’s a better way, or just a modernized union framework, simply yet to be invented? I’d like to hope so.
My point is not that I have a solution but that solutions are called for. And if anyone could do it, I dunno, a company like Kickstarter just thematically seems like a good candidate.
I’ve heard of those types of issues with other unions and agree some of those issues can be problematic. My union is lucky enough to be a true democracy with representatives being there just to expedite important conversation, not to make executive decisions. I’ve seen what can happen from other unions where their structure allows bargaining teams and union leadership to make decisions unilaterally and most often agree that members lose out.
I think part may be that some unions needs to modernize more and realize they need to involve worker input in decisions that historically have been made by a few at the top. Many good unions do follow that approach but not all.
I’d also argue not always necessary either, but it comes down to a case-by-case basis.
If you had an employer that was treating all its employees fairly without the need for a union, adding a union to the mix would just add an extra level of bureaucracy with no real benefit.
If you had an exploitative employer, then hell yeah, unionize.
The tricky area is that I suspect most employers, Kickstarter included, are probably somewhere in the middle. This doesn’t mean that they don’t lean one way or another. This also doesn’t mean that a certain subset of employees are treated well and don’t need to be unionized vs. another subset absolutely does need a union. It all depends.
Is there an article describing what the issues are behind the desire for Kickstarter’s employees to unionize? A quick search hasn’t found anything other than the organizers basically saying things along the lines of “Unions are cool,” and “We want to set an example for the rest of the tech industry.”
Edit: I’d also like to point out that one interesting alternative is sector unionization, like there is parts of Europe. In this case, unions are adopted industry-wide instead of on an employer-by-employer basis. One potential advantage is that no employer would be at an advantage vs. another employer as they’d all be operating under the same union rules.
All for profit companies and all public companies are exploitative employers.
That exists in the US too, just under the name of Guilds, like Screen Actors Guild or Pharmacists Guild. In addition to the benefit you mentioned it also allows for the benefit of protecting employees even in states that have weak labor laws.
Okay, let me rephrase that by saying excessively exploitative. If you’re saying that wanting to turn a profit makes you somewhat exploitative, okay, fine, I’ll go along with that for the sake of argument. However, there is a very large gap between “making a modest profit as a return on my risk/investment while giving my employees fair wages and benefits” vs. “paying all my employees minimum wage with no benefits to maximize every last penny of profit I can.”
All exploitation is excessive.
Well, since you only seem to think in absolutes, of course you’d say that. I happen to disagree that no one is necessarily being exploited so long as they are treated fairly, although admittedly there is lots of wiggle room as to what is “fair.”
It also doesn’t help that a lot of capitalism in the large these days isn’t traditional, Adam Smith Wealth of Nations capitalism but more like corrupt, crony capitalism.
If you’re labor is worth $X, fuck anyone who pays you less than $X. Yeah, someone who is paying $1000 less is worse than someone paying $1 less, but doesn’t matter. Unionize and get X.
It’s ok, I’m only stabbing you a little!
And that’s what I mean by being treated fairly. Labor worth $X should be paid $X.
Labor worth $X can only be paid $X if all profits are distributed to employees (or re-invested into the business).
I think what would make unions/guilds more appealing to someone like me is if they in part worked like headhunter or temp hiring agencies. Where each individual worker is treated like a talent resource and you work with your specific union agent to negotiate the best terms for you, and add more roles and scope as you grow. It’s basically making it so I don’t have to be the one negotiating, but I have an agent who works for me doing it.
While some things like benefits would simply be traditional collective bargaining, when I sit down for an interview there should be a sit down beforehand with a union rep, who figures out my skills. And then they negotiate salaries and such so I don’t have to. And there would be probably some base level price floors based on criteria that the company can’t undersell by in any case, but ideally the union’s trying to get you 160% of that, and find what training you could do to earn 200% or more in the next 6 months.
Honestly the main takeaway is that unions don’t guarantee you get paid what you’re worth. They simply guarantee that no one person in the company is getting completely fucked with no recourse. But I’ve not seen a case where they work to absolutely maximize each worker’s individual potential earnings.
Okay, but how do you divvy up the percentage of profits among them? Which employees get which amount of those profits?
And then what about the labor put in by the founders to establish the company, set things up, hire employees, etc.? Much of that initial labor was done without being paid, and sometimes using their own pre-existing resources, in the hope that their hard work will result in profits that act as “back pay” for all their initial “free labor.” One could argue that that initial unpaid labor justifies them getting a good chunk of the profits too.
But your point of view is incredibly simplistic and lacks nuance.
Baseball has the strongest union in sports, and one of the strongest unions in the country. Individuals get paid according to their worth. Star players still get paid way more. Collective bargaining is not keeping wages of exceptional people down.
You distribute them fairly. There are plenty of employee owned companies. Somehow they manage. Obviously, the CEO doesn’t make 40000x everyone else.