{"id":176911,"date":"2020-02-20T20:58:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T01:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/02\/20\/about-fing-time-9\/"},"modified":"2020-02-20T20:58:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T01:58:00","slug":"about-fing-time-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/02\/20\/about-fing-time-9\/","title":{"rendered":"About F%$#ing Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kickstarter employees have voted to unionize<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You know, foosball tables and good food in the cafeteria does not excuse management from treating people badly.<\/p>\n

Unionization is the only logical response:<\/p>\n

Kickstarter employees voted to form a union with the Office and Professional Employees International Union, which represents more than 100,000 white collar workers. The final vote was 46 for the union, 37 against, a historic win for unionization efforts at tech companies.<\/span>

<\/span> Kickstarter workers are now the first white collar workers at a major tech company to successfully unionize in the United States, sending a message to other tech workers. <\/span>

<\/span> \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span> \u201cI feel like the most important issues [for us] are around creating clearer policies and support for reporting workplace issues and creating clearer mechanisms for hiring and firing employees,\u201d said RV Dougherty, a former trust and safety analyst and core organizer for Kickstarter United who quit in early February. “Right now so much depends on what team you\u2019re on and if you have a good relationship with your manager… We also have a lot of pay disparity and folks who are doing incredible jobs but have been kept from getting promoted because they spoke their mind, which is not how Kickstarter should work.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> In the days leading up to Kickstarter vote count, Motherboard revealed that Kickstarter<\/a> hired Duane Morris, a Philadelphia law firm that specializes in labor management relations and \u201cmaintaining a union-free workplace.\u201d Kickstarter confirmed to Motherboard that it first retained the services of Duane Morris in 2018 before it knew about union organizing at the company, but would not go into detail about whether the firm had advised the company on how to defeat the union and denied any union-busting activity.<\/span>

<\/span> \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span> But in 2018, a heated disagreement broke out between employees and management about whether to leave a project called \u201cAlways Punch Nazis\u201d on the platform, according to reporting in Slate<\/a>. When Breitbart said<\/a> the project violated Kickstarter\u2019s terms of service by inciting violence, management initially planned to remove the project, but then reversed its decision after protest from employees. <\/span>

<\/span> Following the controversy, employees announced their intentions to unionize with OPEIU Local 153 in March 2019. And the company made it clear that it did not believe a union was right for Kickstarter. <\/span>

<\/span> In a letter to creators, Kickstarter\u2019s CEO Aziz Hasan wrote in September that \u201cThe union framework is inherently adversarial.\u201d <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>Yes, it;s inherently adversarial for there to be checks and balances on your behavior, Azis.<\/p>\n

How about you have a nice cup of \u2026\u2026\u2026 Well, you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kickstarter employees have voted to unionize. You know, foosball tables and good food in the cafeteria does not excuse management from treating people badly. Unionization is the only logical response: Kickstarter employees voted to form a union with the Office and Professional Employees International Union, which represents more than 100,000 white collar workers. The final …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[365,367,465,382,442],"class_list":["post-176911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-business","tag-internet","tag-labor","tag-technology","tag-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}