Low job supply in your area and inability to move due to family and other responsibilities tying you down or too busy taking care of your kids to have time to interview and study leetcode or too little time spent on a gig getting you labeled as a job hopper or as a problematic employee by other companies if you don't have enough experience backing you up.
I feel you have no idea how complex people's lives can be.
Then that was the employees fault. They took the risk of moving to the middle of nowhere, (which for Kickstarter happens to be New York?), and are getting paid a bit less than industry average because of it. Is that a call to unionize? Absolutely not.
1) I agree, me and everyone else. This problem will be solved not through a union, but nobody except the bottom of the barrel wanting to work for Kickstarter. Then they will either bump their pay to get good workers back, or fail. Simple economics.
2) I also agree, but that doesn't mean these workers should unionize.
These are bold assertions with no evidence. We do understand that you don't think these people are entitled to a union, nor are they entitled to live where they want and have the respect they think they deserve. Yet you have not said why. It would seem that Kickstarter employees, the ones with the most information here, do disagree with you though.
There is no point in having a conversation if you are going to continue to assert points without any evidence or arguments to back them up. We understand that you look down on this unionization and don't believe that these workers should have the rights that they think they should. You made your point.
Looks like someone doesn't own a home or have a family.
Or if you do, perhaps you have adequate savings where that's maybe not a big deal. Or maybe your spouse makes good money also to support for a while. But most people are not lucky enough to be in that situation.
I do not, so it's possible i'm misunderstanding something.
If I live in New York, as Kickstarter is located, what is so difficult about changing jobs if I have a family? Same thing with other tech hubs, you don't need to physically move homes in order to change jobs. What is so hard about it?
Even if you have to move, my family moved 10 or so times in a few years when I was in grade school for new jobs, never seemed to be a huge issue.
Being easy to do does not mean that it should be expected or usual to do - and even then, if it wasn't easy to do for just a single person in the company, they now have another layer of protection against that. Not every employee lives in the same personal circumstance.
Their headquarters is in New York, not some island in the middle of nowhere.
Ignoring that point, if the employees really are working from somewhere there are NO other tech jobs, then that would be their fault. They took the risk in moving / raising a family in that area relying on a single company to pay them the salaries they want.
The price is slightly below average industry pay. Is that a call to unionize? Nope.
>if the employees really are working from somewhere there are NO other tech jobs, then that would be their fault.
I can't see how it is their fault. Not everyone can afford to live in particular places. You talk about risk, but risk is in fact what is prized - the CEO benefits because they took the risk in starting the company. The CEO is compensated for that risk. Why aren't the employees compensated for their own risk?
>The price is slightly below average industry pay. Is that a call to unionize? Nope.
It can be. Unionization isn't only about salary, it's about maintaining that level of salary, and other benefits. There are many reasons to unionize, which apply to every worker: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22357492
The owner of the company puts as much effort as possible into increasing the duration and intensity of work for a lower wage, providing they maintain the value desired. The worker, likewise, puts as much effort as possible into reducing the duration and intensity of work, and bargaining for a higher wage. Unions make this push and pull more symmetrical.
If I don't like my job, I get another one. It's easier to do this as a software engineer than almost anything else.