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Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

What would you say if Netflix called their bluff and just fired all the people that walked out?

This reminds me more of the student protests we used to see, where they wanted to walk out of classes or miss exams but also wanted special treatment so they didn't fail the class.

I've got no problem with not working at a place whose values you dont agree with, but I see this kind of action (and similar things at other tech companies) more as expecting your employer to pay you to undermine them. I could be wrong.

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> What would you say if Netflix called their bluff and just fired all the people that walked out?

That would be a pretty awesome outcome - Netflix shouldn't have to change their programming (which is generally largely uncontroversial for the most part - I mean when is the last time they truly pushed the envelope? Maybe the OATS STUDIOS and original Black Mirror content?) to satisfy the permanently dissatisfied members of these new-age social movements that attempt to force people to say things that they don't agree with for fear of getting 'cancelled' among other outcomes that are socially negative.

> That would be a pretty awesome outcome...

Even more awesome if they filmed it and had Dave Chappelle standing outside to roast them as they were escorted out.

> What would you say if Netflix called their bluff and just fired all the people that walked out?

They work at FAANG. Pretty sure they'll be able to get new jobs very quickly.

I suspect people involved with work stoppages who aren't protected via a union are keenly aware of the possibility of being fired and have deemed it worth the risk.

> This reminds me more of the student protests we used to see, where they wanted to walk out of classes or miss exams but also wanted special treatment so they didn't fail the class.

Umm, why not compare it to just a normal labour duspute strike action? This is literally a text book example of the type of action organized labour takes when its mad about something.

> I suspect people involved with work stoppages who aren't protected via a union are keenly aware of the possibility of being fired and have deemed it worth the risk.

I think you vastly overestimate the amount of forethought that humans apply when following the herd. Just look at all the Jan 6 people who are completely floored that there might be consequences to their actions.

That doesn't necessarily imply a lack of forethought. They might have seen all the leftists rioting, occupying government buildings, setting up autonomous zones, etc without consequences and thought they would receive similar treatment for behavior that was a common protest tactic in 2020.

They just didn't see the double standard coming.

> Pretty sure they'll be able to get new jobs very quickly.

That's what makes it so good for both parties: Netflix would get rid of employees who are holding the company back, and the employees could easily find new places to work. Seems very mutually beneficial.

> This is literally a text book example of the type of action organized labour takes when its mad about something.

It's not, really. Strikes are usually about workers: their pay, their conditions, their environment.

I would argue this is about workers.

Rightly or wrongly, they seem to think netflix did something morally wrong (i haven't watched the show in question, so not making any judgements on validity). People who work for "bad" companies are often seen as "bad", so it does affect the employees.

More to the point, isn't the important bit that employees are angry and in agreement, not what they are angry about? It seems pretty dystopian to me to say only some grievences are legit.

Anyways, there's also other examples of historical strikes over moral issues. Googling found me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Longshoremen%27s...

> They work at FAANG. Pretty sure they'll be able to get new jobs very quickly

I think companies are acutely aware and growingly suspicious of employee activism. Would you want to hire an activist for your organization? It would be a red flag to me as the activist employees could second guess any decisions made at any level of the organization and work to organize to cause a disruption. It's just not an effective way to run a business

I've seen this happen IRL recently, where a company decided against hiring someone due a history of strongly opinionated employee activism.

I don't blame them. I would definitely consider activism when picking someone for my team. At the end of the day I like working in mission focused organizations. I love working with a diverse group of people, but it's critical that a mission unites us

Do you really believe your mission unites your employees?

Maybe if you're curing cancer or something, but for most tech workers working on some generic CRUD app, they pay lip service to being motivated by the "mission", but settle for something mildly interesting that hopefully isn't actively doing evil in the world.

Your employees trade time and skill for money. Hearts and souls is a much less common trade.

It doesn't matter what the mission is so much as there is one. If the mission is build a beautiful website or a well designed flexible backend, then that's fine. In that case we come in every day and drive towards that.

Perhaps we're using the word "mission" differently. I would call that a goal, and i agree its important.

In most places i have worked, the mission has been some high minded rhetoric about how we're going to change the world for the better that is really disconnected from what we actually do.

I would never hire someone with public activism record. In fact I'd rather hire someone with prior criminal record, as they actually have a chance to recover.

Would you please stop creating accounts that use HN primarily for ideological battle? It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. As you know, we ban such accounts regardless of what they're for or against. I've banned this one.

If you want to use HN as intended—for intellectual curiosity—then you're welcome, but ideological agendas are the opposite of that, irrespective of which ideology.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>If you want to use HN as intended—for intellectual curiosity—then you're welcome, but ideological agendas are the opposite of that, irrespective of which ideology.

You may not be interested in any ideology, but Ideology is surely interested in what you believe. That world where internet was for intellectual curiosity and not ideology battle at every step, is long gone and never coming back.

Maybe so, but the site guidelines haven't changed. If we have to ban more accounts for breaking them, that's fine. It's certainly better than not banning them.

you've got the importances inverted. letting companies do as they please is no way to run a society. people first, then companies. it's this sort of inversion that's gotten us into the mess of a society we're facing now.

I disagree. You need strong leadership in an organization. You can't run an organization with 10k employees where any employee can hold you hostage and refuse to work if they disagree with any decision made.

Any employee can refuse to work. Its called quitting.

That's a very different thing than this of course, which is based around the idea, its not worth it to fire them all.

so coercive tactics by companies against employees is ok but not the reverse? again, that’s a perverse inversion, against the common interests of society at large. corporations are chartered by the government as a means to direct their efforts toward the common good. they’re not natural entities, and we should be way more willing to revoke those charters for the betterment of society.

The interests of society are not served by a group of activists with extremist views trying to impose their values on the entire planet by leveraging the fact that they work for a global brand, and then trying to use that leverage to deplatform anyone who offends them.

Letting people watch what they want is the democratic position that benefits society at large.

the company should use this opportunity to move the ball forward wrt deeper, mutual understanding, not retaliate with mass firings (which is the recommendation i was responding to). that’s escalation, and does nobody any good.

I'm not sure what you are responding to in my comment. I don't think i said anything of the sort.

If an individual employee doesn't like their job, they should quit and find a different one. If a large portion don't like it, then a labour dispute is one possible way to try and resolve the situation.

i may have read too much into it, as it seemed to be making the same trite argument (that many others are making) that the employees should just quit, as their only recourse.

Literally every steel mill worked this way for quite a long time and did just fine.

Look at the booming US steel industry we have today!

I know this is probably an off-hand comment from someone who doesn't know US unionization history very well, but it's hilarious still. That we even still have any steel production is because of unionization. That corporations were allowed to outsource is because of anti-unionization efforts.

The reason the US still has a steel industry is because it's essential for any future major war.

I am familiar with unions and union history. Also union busting efforts and the growth of unions until the 80s during the Reagan era - but to compare a factory worker or a longshoreman to software engineers feels like a facetious comparison with little merit IMO.

I worked at a retail job briefly after high school and it was a joke that I had to pay union due by law in the state of Maryland.

Software engineers are politically probably one of the strongest positioned labor groups in modern history, up their with probably high finance and heirs of huge fortunes. The fact of the matter is that most people don't want to work the vast majority of union jobs and simultaneously, corporations are willing to offshore many of these labor requirements in part due to the cost burden. Sure, management takes home a lot, but honestly I'm unsympathetic to most union industries and I shouldn't have to pay another tax to some obscure group to handle issues.

strong leadership can tolerate disagreement and critique. it’s weak leadership, of which we have an overabundance, that cannot. you advocate coercion, which is the favored tool of weak leadership.

also, it’s a fallacy that the senior managers of an organization (at least successful ones) “run” it. at best, they have outsize influence.

People can speak from the perspective of what companies need/want without neccesarily implying anything about what is best for society overall.

I think you and many of the comments below are missing a critical point: the employees are objectively in the wrong here. This is not about labor conditions or abuses or something, it's about a group trying to censor content and impose ideology on others. You'd have a point if this was Netflix not allowing breaks or something, but it's really just censorship. If there was a group of christian employees walking out over non-Christian values in a show, would you still support it as "people first"? Censorship is censorship, whatever the ideology behind it, it's up to me what I want to watch, not employees at the infrastructure provider

i can concede that attempting to censor content is generally a poor remedy, for society at large. however, the notion that netflix should then fire the employees without discussion or recourse is just as egregious. let’s get past these superficial aspects, otherwise such discussions are useless.

There is no such thing as objectively "wrong" and "right". You can't prove normative statements.

[I'm not a fan of cencorship either]

If you hired landscapers to mow your lawn and they refuse to do so because they spotted political banners on the aforementioned lawn they don't approve, what's going to happen? Forget the reason, what's going to happen if you hired somebody and that person did not show up to work?

Same thing with the companies, they hire people to do work just like people hire other people. If hired people don't want to work - that's fine, just let them go. I am pretty content with this way of society and don't see how changing it can make it any better.

that’s a false equivalence. employment law recognizes the difference between contracting (many-to-many) and employment (many-to-one) and the power and leverage therein. it’s simplistic takes like this that derail genuine and productive discussion.

Is employment law forbidding firing people who did not show up to work? If it does not then you are trying to make a false equivalence, not I.

unions and strikes are legal. seriously, triteness isn’t helping here.

Unions and strikes are legal so is firing people who don't show up for work. Seriously, ignorance is not helping you.

Given the current job market and political climate in tech, i find it hard to believe that a high skill employee would be passed over because they attended a pro-trans protest/walk-stoppage along with thousand other people. I don't think most people would even consider such a person to be an activist employee.

The person who leaked confidential data - yes, i could see that being a red flag in hiring.

It's really tough to find good people, but for 500K FAANG jobs, there's still a long line of applicants.

I don't think we've reached the state (yet) where firms are going to be keeping blacklists of activists.

But we're certainly heading in that direction as techies try to force employers into more extreme stances. Dave Chappelle is a popular guy with broad mainstream appeal, and it's incredibly arrogant for Netflix employees to try to deplatform him, or to try to dictate what Netflix, a company with a global reach, can show to a worldwide audience.

And I think we are going to see some mass firings and circulation of blacklists in at least some of the FAANGS before people wake up and realize they are no longer in college protesting some speaker they think makes them "unsafe". For these types of salaries, some professionalism is expected, and long term employers will demand it.

The same goes for Spotify employees and Joe Rogan.

I've worked in some places where company policy on clothing was "no offensive or political slogans". This was 15-20 years ago. So there was some appetite for keeping politics out of the workplace. I wonder if that needs to be brought back in to most places.

Personally I think there is a fair chance that unless many of these are really good, Netflix will be more productive a month later, not less.

I also think for a large demographic it will make Netflix a more interesting employeer, not less.

I'm in talks with a FAANG company now and this is an actual worry that I have but cannot discuss with my point of contact, that I will be canceled shortly after I'm hired either because of my friends, my views or something I said half a life ago.

> What would you say if Netflix called their bluff and just fired all the people that walked out?

The employees would go on to complain about being improperly let go. This is what happened to Google AI Ethicist Timnit Gebru [0]. She wrote a very public letter demanding changes or she'll resign and Google took her up on the offer. If you go through her twitter[1] you can see she made the firing into her identity now even though it happened nearly a year ago now. It's kind of sad

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/3/22150355/google-fires-tim...

[1] https://twitter.com/timnitGebru

* she/her

great byline, surely a hill to die on as opposed to real credentials. Can't remember what this is from but this quote always feels super applicable to these times: "World's gone mad, going off the grid. over"

> expecting your employer to pay you to undermine them. I could be wrong.

This is a good point.

There's likely a huge amount of content on Netflix that offends a lot of different people and groups. It's your choice to not watch, not subscribe, or not work for them.

There are constructive ways to work with your employer but if you're going to go this route, you better be ready for them to dismiss you.

Maybe I'll start checking Netflix open job boards. There my be some openings soon.

Firing them would have a very positive effect, like when Regan fired 11000 striking air controllers ( https://www.afacwa.org/reagan_fires_11_000_striking_air_traf... ).

> What would you say if Netflix called their bluff and just fired all the people that walked out?

As with the threat itself, probably nothing unless someone else said something about it that I felt called for a response.

> What would you say if Netflix called their bluff and just fired all the people that walked out?

Isn’t that explicitly illegal in the Us? Lol

It is explicitly legal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

The people they terminate would even be ineligible for unemployment benefits since they admitted to slacking off at work, easily substantiating a termination for cause (and hence saving a Netflix some money by keeping their unemployment insurance premiums lower).

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