Kickstarter employees plan to unionize

[guru]

Interesting development....

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2019/03/kick ... -unionize/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Bradius]

If they treat their employees like backers, I can definitely understand the interest in unionizing.

[ICantShuffle]

Yeah, this is pretty interesting.

Even though I am conservative, in general, I have always been pro-labor. I support the idea of unions, as I feel like they're an inevitable consequence of market competition. The only problem I have is that some of them have become less of an organism to protect and train workers, and more to suck more money out of workers pockets and into politicians' with nothing more than empty bottles and promises in return.

I think that Big Tech is going to be feeling the pain now, because the market isn't just the huge cash grab that it was from like 1978 to 2010-- so firms don't necessarily just have this huge revenue stream that they can just throw at human capital. Which means employees' wages are starting to fall into the same pattern that every other industry from textiles to auto manufacturing has for the last 250 years. The advantage of things like Kickstarter and other web-based services is that the barrier to entry is much lower than say, opening a restaurant. Which means more potential competition for employers, but also more potential opportunity for employees (doubly so, if they take their experience to their own startup).

Having said that, I don't really understand the need for unions for jobs where people literally sit at a desk all day-- there are tons of these jobs everywhere, especially in a city like New York where KS in headquartered. AFAIK, Kickstarter doesn't have the traditional development teams that even a purely software company would have, nor do they have manufacturing facilities like Intel, AMD, Nvidia and other tech companies do. They have like a marketing department, a farm of accountants (yay!) and web/app development folks-- these are the closest things to traditionally skilled/professional labor you'll find.

I don't belong to a union, I don't really need to, but instead of unions I have what could more closely be called a professional organizations or guilds (AICPA, AGA, ACFE, etc.). I think this is what the tech industry needs, more organizations that will certify professionals and also help set minimum standards for compensation and performance expectations-- it started in the 1980s/1990s, but I think it's too saturated with overlapping organizations that do the same things. This way, employees can general expect certain compensation and employers can expect a certain level of skill and productivity-- they also have someone to complain to when the job doesn't get done.

I think it's really just Big Tech's hatched chickens are now returning to roost. Fun times lie ahead.