this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
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Yeah yeah yeah, standard response. It won't work. People won't come forward and nothing can/will be done if anyone does come forward. It'll just be awkward for them for a while. Maybe someone will get blamed, fired or resigning ... and then... it'll happen again.
The damage is already done. There's no way to undo it.
They can't handle this by just asking people to snitch. Allowing or encouraging individuals to snitch on other individuals is not the way to stop this.
The proper way for a company to handle harassment cases is to prevent them from happening in the first place.
The proper damage control is to admit that they didn't do enough to prevent it from happening and then tell everyone about how they're going to follow proper OSHA guidance from here on. Let's hear about how they let their employees elect a representative and how they plan to implement preventive actions, and what the procedure is to handle any potential situations before they escalate into a shit show like this.
I guess their union representative could have told them this a long time ago, but hey, they don't have one, because they also thought they could handle everything without any. Look at where that got them.
With them being in Canada they have a potentially big bogeyman in the human rights tribunal to worry about. Over the years outside Labour relations lawyers I've been in touch with have advised no employer wants to end up there as the rules of law sort of no longer apply and the penalties can be off the charts beyond legal precedent.
Employers need to do better jobs regardless of this bogeyman or a unions being needed avenue as they can present their own challenges for staff and employers with the additional level of bureaucracy. The more layers, the more complicated everything becomes beyond the egos of the various layers involved.
It's a shame to read all that's going on or alleged to have gone on. I love tech but I've not worked in the tech specific industry. I was aware of Linus back to my PC building days and seen some of his videos over the years and the surprising overlaps into the auto channels eventually.
I wondered what it would have been like to work in a smaller at the time company like his, but I saw some of his frustrations in a media system setup video a couple of years back that kind of had me wonder what is he like to work with? Linus seems really high energy and not super polished in his interactions. Being honest tech people don't always have the best social skills, much like those that excel at social skills are not the best tech people in broad terms.
I've heard rumblings of (as they aren't a part of my online world) gamer gate and heard of other issues for women in tech. Thinking about it more I could see how a lack of social awareness and tech bros culture not being a good mix in a growing environment trying to include women. They can't just think of them as being just another one of the guys with the usual stupid crap they do to each other. I'm getting old now because that statement leads to all kinds of new world issues with the extra gender labels that need to be accounted for today and there are other concerns that arise which the old bros culture cannot accommodate. The locker room behaviour was questionable at best and it's always been dangerous to have in a workplace, which can really be a huge issue for them to change (if it exists). There is some smoke without a doubt and it reinforces its not easy to be a woman in these types of tech environments especially when companies grow beyond the initial friends group.
Since I did not really watch more than a couple of videos a year of the LTT I did not realize how large they have become. Their converted warehouse space must just be jammed full of people at 100+ staff now. It was kind of small when they were smaller as it was. With the work load, overhead to cover, the youtube grind, the issues of trying to run during Rona, and the brave new world of big company issues and accommodations needed for a not friends anymore workforce with the workloads, it is easy to see how things can spin out of control with all that is going on. The silos that have developed could have become big blind spots along with the other issues discussed in the social media posts. Wolves of public opinion and of the disgruntled are at the door now.
I suspect at some point it will be mentioned in hindsight that it would have been better for them to sell with the 100 million offer they had received but I wonder how much of this stuff would have surfaced before the sale went through from due diligence by the potential buyer?
It's going to be a big mess ahead to sort out and I hope they are sincere in their intentions to figure this out, make the changes needed (if they are needed, which it sounds like they are) and to repair the damaged incurred to those along the way. It's a bloody big job and its going to be tough to do in the court of public opinion making their own decisions along the way about what is really going on inside the situation.
Like that meme of the person trying to make the exit from 4 lanes away on the highway, Good luck everyone! The pile up is going to be big.
Union I would say is important because when employers take this on, and this is openly advertised by HR/diversity consultants, it's often with the intention of absolving the employer from liability in these matters, rather than improving the employee's experience.
Yeah, they need a new robust HR system focused on workplace culture. I hope they'll realize that it's necessary if they want the company to still exist.
Yes HR is necessary, but they also need representatives for the employees, who can speak to HR and management freely on behalf of employees, so that any individual doesn't have to address these kinds of problems personally.
The easiest solution for management is always to fire the one reporting problems, because then the problem goes away. That situation has to be dismantled before they can have an honest discussion of these sort of things. That can only be done by an employee representative.
So a union?
Yes it could be, but not necessarily. Depends on the country and what their laws are. Many countries have regulations of hazardous working environments (including psychological environment) which mandates companies having more than a few employees to facilitate employee representation, even if the company does not have a collective agreement. It's a legal obligation rather than a voluntary union.
Other countries aren't that progressive and only address physical working environments in the law, leaving anything else to the unions.
There's usually some crossover between what the union and safety representatives do.
It would be nice if stuff like this was taught in schools, because there are a lot of misconceptions about it.
The problem doesn't go away, they just stop hearing about it. I hope lmg cares about their workplace culture, (it's even good business sense) so they would want to fix the issues instead of silencing it.
Exactly, what are they doing to ensure the are no future stories like Madison's?
That's how we know you're talking responsibility.