CEOs booted at California tech company that furloughed all 900 employees | Hacker News Reader

CEOs booted at California tech company that furloughed all 900 employees

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57 pointsStratoscope21 comments

Just goes to show, you have nothing to lose by organizing Sitdown strikes which effectively take possession of the business. You couldn't possibly run it worse than our self-appointed lords and masters.

I mean, if you're all going to get laid off or furloughed and the CEO's are charlatans. May as well give it a shot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitdown_strike

Unfortunately, corporations can now sue people who strike. This is the worst time line.

That's not what that case was about.

Some people view unionization as extortion. You filled out a job application and now you want to control the capital and resources of the people who gave you the job?

3...2...1... Downvotes!

> You filled out a job application and now you want to control the capital and resources of the people who gave you the job?

You give people some money and now you want to control how they spend their time?

Isn’t time at least part of the expectation (in addition to some output or some result)?

You will never get upvotes by making obviously true statements. Get with the pogrom, er, program.

Adam Smith had worthwhile observations about how he compensated his employees. Some call it his Theory of Labor. I call it a successful Scottish business man calling it as he saw it back then

I just wish the people running the union I belong to understood what he said so they could make a more cogent argument than *You're rich so give me your money."

Yes, that's why I gave them money.

If they didn't want to sell me their time, they didn't have to.

Nobody is forcing you to agree to anything, and, conversely, you can't force employees not to coordinate, and that's all they're doing. They aren't threatening you with violence.

It's interesting how you view the equalization of power as extortion, though. It's OK for the company to coordinate, with a well-defined structure, a leader, etc, but when the employees do it, it's suddenly extortion?

I unfortunately need to eat to survive (crazy thought, I know), and you have decided that you deserve to hoard more money than others, so yes, I'm selling you my time. Not because I want to, I've seen enough shitty-ass Web3 AI powered CRUD VC backed software for a lifetime, but since I like continuing to exist and live, I kind of have to. Whether to you, or the nearest wealth hoarder.

>people who gave you a job

You mean people you provide with workforce.

BTW as long as it's called HR employees are treated as assets not people. Interestingly companies are willing to pay higher prices for other resources but not for people.

Unions can go either way. They suffer from the same problems as democratic governments, ie prone to corruption and bloating and working against the people they are supposed to protect.

What do you do in that situation? Do you have a Union for you Union?

Just a few days ago, this was trending on HackerNews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36188406

Police unions who are paid by tax payers so they would enforce laws written by people appointed by people, make their own buddy clubs and pick and choose the enforcement.

Because of the power dynamics involved (and the power bestowed upon cops), it's a common belief that police unions work in a very different way than most labor unions.

Police unions are not valid unions and there’s plenty written why.

All you are describing is every human organization throughout history.

Pretty sure groups are still paramount to our future.

Um... What?

The business is bankrupt. Taking "possession" of it is pretty meaningless at this point even if that is what has happened (it doesn't seem to be).

I don’t think that would work in the modern era. The employees would probably be considered trespassing at that point; and would be removed by judicial forces.

I think it’s also worth noting U.S. labor history that workers were massacred at a Carnegie Steel plant just a few decades before the sitdown strike was invented, for doing something very similar.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike

A lot more CEOs need to be freed up so they can focus on other things, particularly those incapable of leveraging employee skills to grow the companies they manage instead of doing mass layoffs. It just shows they are not doing more than an accountant looking at numbers and figuring they cant afford to pay salaries. And while an accountant does the job well a CEO is hired to lead growth and innovation.

We need cxoGPT to make "tough decisions". It is not clear that human CxOs are making better choices than an AI anyway.

To be fair we dont even need ai to replace some of them. Nested if statements will do.

If economy_bad() layoffs else if rain() layoffs …

I am amazed at how badly some lack innovation skills and are just glorified conditional blocks.

Good and great ceos lead and grow companies. That job type needs disruption.

So after the layoffs they would have 0 employees and 2 CEOs? Seems a little top-heavy.

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