Union workers at Kickstarter pushed to keep a four-day workweek in place.
Credit…
Andrew Seng for The New York Times
Kickstarter employees also said rising insecurity and inequality across the industry had weighed on them.
“I have a lot more in common with someone who’s working in a whole other industry, who does something completely different than I do, than I do with the technocrat billionaires,” said Arleigh Atkinson, a software engineer at Kickstarter involved in organizing the strike there.
With their first contract expiring this summer, Ms. Atkinson and her colleagues sought to preserve their four-day schedule.
Back in 2022, the progressive-minded company had shifted to a standard workweek of four eight-hour days with no loss of pay, an idea popular in some academic and left-wingcircles. Proponents argue that it can lower turnover and raise morale without sacrificing productivity. The company piloted the schedule before adopting it indefinitely, and employees quickly became attached to it.
They were generally paid less than workers at large tech companies, whose compensation can include valuable stock grants, and felt it was fair to expect additional leisure in return. Many engineers at the company earn between $150,000 and $250,000 a year, according to employees and the job review website Glassdoor. Kickstarter said it paid above the median for the industry.
Image
Everette Taylor, Kickstarter’s chief executive, has run the company since 2022.
Credit…
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
When the company would not commit to sticking with the four-day schedule, employees in the union decided they were willing to strike over the issue, and to win a new pay scale for lower-paid employees.
Some workers began saving up money — Mr. Jurado pared back his subscriptions on the video game streaming platform Twitch. Their union, Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153, kicked in nearly $400 a week per striking worker after they walked off the job in early October.
Once the two sides reached a deal the next month, the workers called the gains “historic.” Kickstarter said that the “overwhelming majority” of its employees had already made more than what a new minimum-salary formula required and noted that the company retained the right to amend the four-day schedule but agreed to bargain over changes. Workers can strike over the schedule if there is no agreement, but must wait 12 weeks to do so.
Organizers elsewhere in the tech industry said the Kickstarter strike was a potential model. The lesson for employers is that “you need those people showing up every day or you evaporate,” said Skye Knighton, a game security analyst at Blizzard, a video game company owned by Microsoft. Mr. Knighton recently helped unionize a group of his co-workers.
The Kickstarter workers had some advantages that may not be available to other tech workers. In late October, the striking employees pleaded with management to voluntarily pay their next month’s health insurance coverage, and the company agreed — a gesture that most employers are unlikely to make in those circumstances.
Still, Ms. Redwine, the Kickstarter employee turned labor organizer, said layoffs and pressure from management had made many tech workers sympathetic to steps they would have previously regarded as unimaginable, even if they aren’t in a position to strike.
“They’re more interested in solutions like collective action and unions, but they’re also more precarious, more afraid,” she said.
Noam Scheiber is a Times reporter covering white-collar workers, focusing on issues such as pay, artificial intelligence, downward mobility and discrimination. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
A New Precedent for Striking
Image
Union workers at Kickstarter pushed to keep a four-day workweek in place.
Credit…
Andrew Seng for The New York Times
Kickstarter employees also said rising insecurity and inequality across the industry had weighed on them.
“I have a lot more in common with someone who’s working in a whole other industry, who does something completely different than I do, than I do with the technocrat billionaires,” said Arleigh Atkinson, a software engineer at Kickstarter involved in organizing the strike there.
With their first contract expiring this summer, Ms. Atkinson and her colleagues sought to preserve their four-day schedule.
Back in 2022, the progressive-minded company had shifted to a standard workweek of four eight-hour days with no loss of pay, an idea popular in some academic and left-wing circles. Proponents argue that it can lower turnover and raise morale without sacrificing productivity. The company piloted the schedule before adopting it indefinitely, and employees quickly became attached to it.
They were generally paid less than workers at large tech companies, whose compensation can include valuable stock grants, and felt it was fair to expect additional leisure in return. Many engineers at the company earn between $150,000 and $250,000 a year, according to employees and the job review website Glassdoor. Kickstarter said it paid above the median for the industry.
Image
Everette Taylor, Kickstarter’s chief executive, has run the company since 2022.
Credit…
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
When the company would not commit to sticking with the four-day schedule, employees in the union decided they were willing to strike over the issue, and to win a new pay scale for lower-paid employees.
Some workers began saving up money — Mr. Jurado pared back his subscriptions on the video game streaming platform Twitch. Their union, Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153, kicked in nearly $400 a week per striking worker after they walked off the job in early October.
Once the two sides reached a deal the next month, the workers called the gains “historic.” Kickstarter said that the “overwhelming majority” of its employees had already made more than what a new minimum-salary formula required and noted that the company retained the right to amend the four-day schedule but agreed to bargain over changes. Workers can strike over the schedule if there is no agreement, but must wait 12 weeks to do so.
Organizers elsewhere in the tech industry said the Kickstarter strike was a potential model. The lesson for employers is that “you need those people showing up every day or you evaporate,” said Skye Knighton, a game security analyst at Blizzard, a video game company owned by Microsoft. Mr. Knighton recently helped unionize a group of his co-workers.
The Kickstarter workers had some advantages that may not be available to other tech workers. In late October, the striking employees pleaded with management to voluntarily pay their next month’s health insurance coverage, and the company agreed — a gesture that most employers are unlikely to make in those circumstances.
Still, Ms. Redwine, the Kickstarter employee turned labor organizer, said layoffs and pressure from management had made many tech workers sympathetic to steps they would have previously regarded as unimaginable, even if they aren’t in a position to strike.
“They’re more interested in solutions like collective action and unions, but they’re also more precarious, more afraid,” she said.
Noam Scheiber is a Times reporter covering white-collar workers, focusing on issues such as pay, artificial intelligence, downward mobility and discrimination. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
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