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Comment by elicash | Hacker News Reader

For folks who don't know, one thing right out of the union-buster handbook is that you first remove the ability of workers to organize themselves at work -- and then when they have to resort to visiting their co-workers at their homes to organize them, you make those home visits an argument against the union.

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I think there has to be a line somewhere between protecting employees right to talk about work (that has pretty strong protections, even public comments online can be protected between employees have been protected) and ... having the employer host a slack channel.

What happens if that channel gets really nasty and some employees are bullying others (for any reason) or just anything bad comes of it?

The employer is by default privy to the whole channel too.

I just think recorded info like this hosted by the employer is inherently a bad idea and everyone would be better served if the employees ran some channel of their own hosted elsewhere.

You suggest having a line, but as a top-level comment alludes to, there historically has been one and it's right where the author of this article drew it.

Companies have the right in most circumstances to say "no hanging up non-work pamphlets on the bulletin board." But once you allow non-work pamphlets, you can't discriminate against against these types of issues. That, sadly in my view, changed under the Trump NLRB specifically when it came to email (which one could argue slack is similar to). Though it's likely to change again under Democrats.

By the way, in terms of "bullying" it's worth noting that the law protecting the ability of people to talk about workplace conditions using company resources like a bulletin board or slack channel doesn't have to allow for abuse behavior by coworkers. If you're seeking a line, that can be it, and it's based in current law, too.

This final comment isn't aimed at you, but I wish the "anti-cancel culture" activists took this seriously as a free speech issue. This kind of thing is much more common and a bigger deal than a select group of folks who have to rely on substack for their audiences to follow their thoughts.

It's not even much more common: it's the same thing. "Canceling" is people losing their jobs over suspicion, rumors, accusations and unpopular opinions on no material grounds. With labor rights, that can't happen. You have to have a specific, pre-negotiated reason.

Somehow the people who moan endlessly about someone getting fired for liking a tweet are the same people who will fight to the death to preserve the ability for employers to fire you for liking a tweet.

> I just think recorded info like this hosted by the employer is inherently a bad idea and everyone would be better served if the employees ran some channel of their own hosted elsewhere.

I wonder if the employees would be allowed to set up their slack channel elsewhere, or if Apple would prefer having control.

If I'm magically Apple CEO, I want it off my systems so some rando manager or VP doesn't go do anything bad with that information...

But if I'm 'bad'... I want it.

> What happens if that channel gets really nasty and some employees are bullying others (for any reason) or just anything bad comes of it?

"We don't condone the existence of this channel, however due to labor laws, we can't and won't take action against it. If the discussion of this channel moves away from primarily being labor and organization related we will archive the channel, give all of you access to the archive, and shut it down. This is to prevent the harassment and not to block organization efforts.

If you feel uncomfortable in this chat, please let us know and we can silently remove you from it.

We also encourage employees that want to organize to use alternative methods that aren't hosted by Apple."

All too often people on hacker news will say “well what we’re they supposed to do?” and being honest and open is always the answer.

The other side on Hacker News will say 'be open and honest', but fail to indemnify the person at hand against potential losses. Talk is cheap, unless you're the one who has to pay for the consequences.

Again this is a legal requirement. If the cost of allowing this means Apple is going to tank then maybe it should tank.

So, if a company can't afford to enable "nast[iness]", they "should tank"? I am trying to take everyone's argument at face value, but yours doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

The company should not prevent people discussing labor rights or labor organization. It's as simple as that.

I think you’re ignoring the preceding comments in the thread.

Wouldn't bullying be a reason for discipline regardless of what medium is occurred in? That doesn't seem relevant to Slack channels about any particular topic.

> What happens if that channel gets really nasty and some employees are bullying others (for any reason) or just anything bad comes of it?

What if the Earth ended yesterday? It doesn't matter, because it didn't happen. Also, that would be a disciplinary matter for those employees, not the chatroom.

> I just think recorded info like this hosted by the employer is inherently a bad idea and everyone would be better served if the employees ran some channel of their own hosted elsewhere.

Have you ever tried to get your friends to join you on some new social or messaging platform? And failed miserably? Yeah. Now try getting random coworkers to do it.

The entire purpose of banning this room was to raise the barrier against organizing. And it did so effectively.

it's 2021. There's no reason employees can't meet to talk on another platform or around a hashtag or something.

it's a far cry from union busting to ask that you use the million tools available, for free, to everyone.

And it's a win-win for the employees - b/c now it's beyond the control of the company in question.

So you're suggesting Apple will allow an email to go out to everyone that alerts employees of the EMPLOYEE-hosted slack space? Because if not, we're back to having to tell them via home visits. Any other method (for example, spreading the word in the break room) would get the worker organizers in trouble if they got caught.

you can ask "hey can i have your phone #" and then text them. you can ask them "can i have your email" and then email them.

people far more innovative than I could come up with other methods

I'm all for unionization. But i don't get this forcing companies to supply you with the tools to enable you to do so.

"You want my phone number, why?"

"Oh, I'm not allowed to say while on company property."

Yeah, that makes sense.

You could say why... It's logistically and legally much more difficult for Apple to control that.

If the coworker rats you out for violating their policy, since you're now suggesting they just violate the policy because it's hard to enforce, then you are fired.

This is more difficult than you think at Apple, since the company provides many engineers with phones for company use that most people just use personally.

I've always worked for small startup or regional tech companies (software companies, TaaS companies, datacenters, ISPs)

I landed my first gig at a large bay area software company and it's been great. Maybe I'm still green - but i've never experienced a company that treat it's employees so well in compensation and benefits. Never. including a somewhat large european software company i worked for. I'm sure once you dig in somewhere, there's stuff from a labor perspective to complain about but i just don't see it.

But no matter the company, including this one, I've always rejected company phones and pushed to use my own. Wanna give me a stipend? Ok.

Want me to install Microsoft InTune to give you admin control over the MS app on my phone (office/teams/outlook)? Ok. That's fine

Wants a policy of me locking my phone upon installation of some apps? Ok.

But you don't get to control my whole phone. Period. And I don't get the people who allow this line to be crossed.

Besides, one day 5 or 10 years from now i might want to look for another job - should i be using company property to do this? Should i when i inevitably look up stuff in my private life that might violate company policy? Be it political stuff or adult entertainment?

> you can ask "hey can i have your phone #" and then text them. you can ask them "can i have your email" and then email them.

Can you do this on company property? If not, you seem to be proposing some sort of psychic divining of the payroll and addresses of workers, or some psychic communication of phone numbers and emails.

Can you stand outside of the gates and flag down cars as they leave?

How can you be all for unionization but be against any possible way to establish a union?

Have you ever tried to get your friends to join you on some new social or messaging platform? And failed miserably? Yeah. Now try getting random coworkers to do it. And then try doing it without being allowed to tell them about it at work, over email, over slack, or over any of the other ways you contact your coworkers.

Doesn’t seem like pay equity is very important to them then?

It's not like American software companies have a history of colliding to sabotage their workers

> one thing right out of the union-buster handbook is that you first remove the ability of workers to organize themselves at work

Simplest way around that is handing out pamphlets near the company entrance/exit containing information about the union. And of course you point to non-employer-hosted resources such as a member-only forum.

If you mean the parking lot, keep in mind that's a contested area that employers have fought very hard to prevent workers from using to organize.

If you mean just outside of the parking lot, you STILL have issues. Amazon for instance, in their recent organizing battle, literally was accused of getting the county to change the traffic light timing:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/17/22287191/amazon-alabama-w...

These issues are not simple. Organizing is hard.

Pamphlets? In 2021? Really? I think if the only way labor organizers can reasonably notify members and potential members of goings-on is via pamphlets, there's something wrong here.

What are you going to do, ask HR for a list of everybody's personal email addresses? Pamphlets seem like a pretty reasonable workaround to me. Though, in my experience, pamphlets are more of an icebreaker than the actual medium of communication. If you're just standing around trying to talk to people, nobody wants that. If you're holding a binder, or have some pamphlets to hand people, they're a lot more willing to talk. As long as the pamphlet has a URL or email address, probably a QR code, it has a purpose for those who are interested.

Good thing it's 2021 where opt-in communication at a better level of home visits is a click away (literally, they could have just made a new Slack workspace and used non-work devices to visit it)

But what you're suggesting is that they'd have to do a house visit in order to tell coworkers about this slack workspace -- that anything using company resources, including company grounds, should be a violation of the rights of the company.

In what universe is there no option besides a house visit to share a link?!

In what universe did my comment say "that anything using company resources, including company grounds, should be a violation of the rights of the company."?!

In what universe is there nothing between "start a public slack channel on the company slack" and "show up to someone's house with a URL"?!

I'm sorry but it's like HN has just suddenly become this place where people are literally unable to just reply to the comment they read and not some made up fantasy version that relies on whatever agenda they've applied to you. It's a little much when you're going this far in turning off your brain to be able to do it... please realize using critical thinking is not a moral fault. It's the bare minimum you can do reading a comment.

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