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Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by snarf21 on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @02:29PM (#21983724)
I generally agree. What we do need is better worker protections and consumer protections. Get rid of no-competes. Get rid of right to work statutes. Add mandatory retirement contributions. Add mandatory and standard severance packages.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by unapologetic on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @04:29PM (#21985103)
That will just drive more employers towards part time employees and outsourcing.

The latter, I agree with the former reforms.

You also aren't getting this sort of top down reform without obtaining more political power than the upper class. That's not going to happen without better organizing (Union, political movements, whatever).

Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by friendlybus on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @04:53PM (#21985364)
These utopian goals turn into dystopias.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by unapologetic on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @05:18PM (#21985698)
They don't. They exist all over and work fine.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by friendlybus on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @06:10PM (#21986259)
[dead]
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by friendlybus on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @06:28PM (#21986427)
Attacking appearing of argument instead of it's content is a fallacy.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by Can_Not on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @11:29PM (#21988359)
He should have targeted your cherry picking and hasty generalizations.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by friendlybus on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @03:45AM (#21989616)
Finding sources to support my arguments is good practice. I do not have the resources to do multi-variate analysis of the problem within the scope of a hackernews thread.

The generalization about utopias is something I've lived through.

Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by AnimalMuppet on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @04:48PM (#21985309)
> Get rid of right to work statutes.

Meaning that you're fine with me being required to join a union in order to work? No. I'd rather have the freedom to choose for myself, even if it means I have to give the same freedom to others.

Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by snarf21 on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @09:10AM (#21991531)
No, I meant that when you take a job you are given a contract with clear rules about your job and for fixed durations. I was suggesting this instead of unions but this does require legislation.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by friendlybus on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @02:36PM (#21983825)
The best outcome is the industry self-regulating these amendments into their business practices under the threat of unionizing, rather than actually turning the industry into an institution itself and losing it's creative spark.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by jgon on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @03:30PM (#21984444)
The industry has had roughly 4 decades to make those self-regulating adjustments, how much longer should we wait?
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by friendlybus on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @03:52PM (#21984678)
Who is waiting? Most people I know that didn't like the conditions got better jobs in other industries. Finance pays well and is cushy in comparison. Architecture visualizations, media jobs, programming roles are easier to find after obtaining the ability to outperform the norms for other industries.

For most of gaming's history it has been a niche product without mainstream appeal. Do you unionize every fledgling industry? No. It hasn't been four decades in the making. The majority of bad sentiment has come in the past five years, exacerbated by a goldrush mentality and kickstarter burns. The goldrush is over, the big projects are paying out massively to employees. Star Citizen has spent hundred of millions on staff and capital and needs to raise more. Epic is pouring cash back into the industry rewarding workers.

There are more people employed in the industry than ever and some see the collective as a route to personal power. I can't agree with that.

Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by midnightclubbed on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @05:51PM (#21986052)
> For most of gaming's history it has been a niche product without mainstream appeal

Really? So the Atari boom was niche? 500,000 arcade machines sold in 1982 was niche? 30 million Nintendo Entertainment systems in American homes was niche?

It hasn't been a fledgling industry by any reasonable measure for at least 25 years if not much longer.

How many artists, testers and game designers do you know that moved into finance, media jobs, or architectural visualization (very much a niche industry). At least 75% of people working in the video game industry doing skilled and professional work can't easily transfer to a different field in the same way as an electrician cant move in to plumbing.

Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by friendlybus on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @06:08PM (#21986239)
I know one in finance and one in arch viz. There are interviews of Bethesda artists looking for work on the side and quoting generous and lazy deadlines for the work. The customer is amazed they can do in two weeks what takes other people a month or more.

Games is not in a position of minimizing all risk. What industry is? If you want a safe job get into defense contracting. Go back to university and retrain like everybody else does.

It's baffling to see this attitude on Hackernews, famous for tech entrepreneurs who have more pivots in their career than a pirouetting ice skater.

Are comic books mainstream? They sold millions of copies, they are still a niche interest. Not until the Wii did games open up to a 'casual' market. With phones it's truly everywhere now.

Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by Apocryphon on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @06:17PM (#21986331)
Hacker News is not immune to the vicissitudes of society at large, and there is similar discontent against tech employers in non-game industry as well. There has been both sentiment in support of unionization at large tech megacorps like Google [0], and (non-union-related) sentiment against predatory startups that give misleading promises while forcing employees to assume both greater risk and lesser reward. [1] Not to mention there seems to be less hero worship of founders than there was in the past. [2]

There is a generalized dissatisfaction that the wealth generated by tech is not adequately being reached by its workers. Union advocacy is only a component of it. Tech might pay better than other industries, but its workers are just as affected by costs in housing and healthcare, just as everyone else.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923085

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21865065

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868022

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21973333

Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by unapologetic on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @04:31PM (#21985117)
> The majority of bad sentiment has come in the past five years

Literally the first 3rd party gaming company was because workers were unsatisfied with Atari.

Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by friendlybus on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @04:42PM (#21985242)
The key engineers who left Ferrari in '61 became the key engineers that lifted Lamborghini into existence. They didn't start a union and stepped away from deaths of Ferrari drivers and verbal abuse to start something new with Lamborghini. Both companies survived and no unions were started.

https://www.gptoday.net/en/news/f1/207607/history-ferrari-an...

Disgruntled employees are the birth of something new, not a call to clamp down.

Who is calling for tech & gaming unionization because of the first 3rd party gaming company? It's not the majority of bad sentiment. It's not even news.

Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by midnightclubbed on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @05:56PM (#21986114)
Both Ferrari and Lamborghini are unionized. Indeed the financing that helped start Lamborghini in 1963 was contingent on there being a workers union.

I don't understand your point.

Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by friendlybus on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @06:11PM (#21986264)
Lamborghini wouldn't exist had those five engineers unionized at Ferrari instead of leaving.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by unapologetic on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @05:42PM (#21985943)
I was pointing out that the claim this sort of thing is new is complete and total bullshit.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by friendlybus on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @05:56PM (#21986111)
Nobody claimed it was new. The majority of this is recent.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by unapologetic on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @05:57PM (#21986129)
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by forrestthewoods on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @03:32PM (#21984466)
> Get rid of right to work statutes

I would not call taking away a worker’s right to work a benefit for a skilled worker.

Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by SauciestGNU on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @04:31PM (#21985120)
"Right to work" is one of those legal principles that follows a dystopian naming scheme. It was lobbied for by the owner class because it allows freeloaders to benefit from collective bargaining without paying membership dues in the union representing them. This weakens the union, with the eventual goal of eliminating the union (and the benefits it negotiated for workers) altogether.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by AnimalMuppet on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @04:51PM (#21985343)
Your alternative puts workers in a straitjacket of having to belong to a union to work certain places. You say it's for their good. But all I see is the straitjacket.
Re:Major union launches campaign to organize video game and ... by forrestthewoods on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @04:54PM (#21985385)
And yet the alternative is not being allowed to work unless you donate money to extraordinarily political organizations who lobby for policies you may actively oppose.

Sorry, but I’m going to call the compelled speech option far more dystopian than right to work.