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Comment by ttoinou | Hacker News Reader

I have read the whole website and failed to see one concrete example of action that the union could take to make game-industry employees' life better

   Game Workers Unite is a broad-reaching organization
   that seeks to connect pro-union activists,
   exploited workers, and allies across borders
   and across ideologies in the name of
   building a unionized game industry.

Even compatible with the libertarian ideology :p ?

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Off the top of my head:

Lobby for improvements in labour laws to protect employees -scrapping non competes for example:

Representation: In Discipline & Grievance, labour or employment triburnerals.

Also as a source of pay rates etc ala BECTU, IATSE who also represent a lot of freelance workers and managers.

Libertarians should, in principle, be okay with people exercising their personal freedom to form a union.

Forming a union is no big deal, but if others don't have the right not to negotiate with or support that union by virtue of the type of work they're doing, it may as well be a government restriction on your right to pursue employment.

Why should you have a right to work at a particular place?

The workers with a democratic process negotiated with the management. You’re not special. Why should your unwillingness to participate impact the rights of others who freely entered into an agreement?

> Why should you have a right to work at a particular place?

Well, that's not what I said though. I said a right to pursue employment. That is, to be free to negotiate for an agreement with no forcible terms, to exchange something you have for something you want more than what you're exchanging.

You have that. You can take a job in a union shop and you’re able to pursue negotiations as part of the democratic process in the union. My colleague in a former job is in the middle of that right now, running for union office. Or you can go somewhere else.

Whatever you’re negotiating yourself, 9/10 times you’re still an at will employee and really have no bargaining power. Individual negotiations for jobs are like buying a car — every dude is telling you how they beat the dealer. I’ve hired many many software people over the years and almost never leave a fairly narrow salary band — maybe 5% of cases. Offering a few percent over average is usually enough.

The issue is that people not in the union are not free to pursue their own negotiations.

Libertarians usually say that everyone should be free to form contracts without government restriction. Why shouldn't unions get the same freedom to form binding contracts that everyone else gets?

All unions have concrete ways to make people's lives better. That's why they exist. This website glosses over them but they are pretty basic.

Things like open salaries, control over agile process, overtime for on-call, overtime pay for crunch times, more control over hiring / firing.

Why would I want my salary to be the same as everyone else? If I am better than the next person and I am a better negotiator, why should my salary be identical to the lazy fuck that has the same number of years of experience?

The mistake of these Marxist organizations is that they assume that workers are interchangeable parts. Maybe on an assembly line that is true, but engineering software or hardware or designing things? You can train someone to install a windshield in a Ford plant. You can’t really train someone in problem solving or creativity.

I am an individual; I am not a member of a “collective.”

Err that's not how it works in M&P (managerial and professional ) unions.

SAG members don't all get paid the same ie Matt Damon doesn't get the same as say some lucky actor whos landed a lead role in pilot season.

And don't take this wrong you may think you are special but your employer doesn't

> Why would I want my salary to be the same as everyone else? If I am better than the next person and I am a better negotiator, why should my salary be identical to the lazy fuck that has the same number of years of experience?

Why do you have disdain for other workers, who largely share your economic and political interests?

The same would be asked of someone about their skin color, by those who think skin colored collectives are units of economics and policy.

Hypothetical: if you could increase your salary from what it is, but your coworker who makes less would also get that new higher salary, would you go for it? Even if you think you're better than they are?

To put some numbers on it: you're at $100k and Alice is at $90k (because she's a woman?). After unionizing, you'd get $110 and Alice would get $110.

Would you do it?

> Alice is at $90k (because she's a woman?)

Any evidence of this in practice?

> After unionizing, you'd get $110 and Alice would get $110.

Or maybe you'd both get $100, or maybe one of you would never be hired. You've got your hypotheticals, I've got mine.

1. Evidence of women being underpaid (in tech)? Definitely got evidence, both anecdotal and US-wide.

2. You didn't answer my hypothetical, but I'll answer yours: If my salary doesn't change but Alice gets a raise, good for her, doesn't bother me. If I never got hired I don't care about Alice's salary, likewise if she never got hired. Anyway, the parent comment complained "why would I want my salary to be the same as everyone else?" so that's what my hypothetical gets at.

A department gets X budget, low-value employees making more money = high-value employee making less.

2. I am bothered if co-workers make more than me even when I am more important for the project and do more.

> A department gets X budget, low-value employees making more money = high-value employee making less

Just like when I win in the stock market, that money comes from Warren Buffet's earnings.

Union contracts can set minimums, but you can negotiate higher. And in the end, if you suck, nobody will hire you. If you don't suck, you'll make atleast a great wage, if not higher. Not all unions have seniority rules; my union naturally filters out the crap people.

You are arguing that you should get more than the other guy, when in reality a decent contract can guarantee you both more than you alone might have earned.

And you are a member of a collective - society.

> If I am better than the next person and I am a better negotiator

But are you really? If you don't know what your coworkers are making then you might actually be the lowest paid.

Sure, if it's of the left-wing type (ie. the original one before Americans twisted the meaning of this word, just like liberal).

Just curious, what words would you use to describe "American-style liberal" and "American-style left-wing"?

The term "libertarian" was first used by anarchists and syndicalists in Europe.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Libertarianism#/History

Furthermore, modern day "libertarianism" in the USA has more to do with Objectivism/Egoism (Ayn Rand) Individualism(Individualist Anarchism). https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Libertarianism_in_the_United_Sta...

GP means left-libertarians, for example anarcho-syndicalists like Noam Chomsky.

Versus American libertarian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZITP93pqtdQ

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