And with the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, Democrats want that to be all it takes. Among other things, the proposal would allow employees to simply sign a petition, giving them overnight unionization. This "card check" proposal appropriately died in 2009, when the Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. Even many Democrats then could not stomach it.
Moreover, the Democrats want to override the right-to-work laws in 28 states, which stops workers from being compelled to join a union to work in the public sector. Of course they do, because many workers don't want to be in a union. In 2015 after Wisconsin enacted a right-to-work law, nearly 100,000 workers dropped out of the public-sector unions. Removing right-to-work laws also gives unions a free pass, since they no longer must answer to workers or even provide value in order to get new members.
Right to work increases jobs and choices, which is why we include it as one of the grading metrics in CTA's biennial U.S. Innovation Scorecard. States with right-to-work laws receive an A+, and those that force workers to participate in and pay dues to unions earn an F.
Although most Americans have a favorable view of unions, very few belong to one, according to a Pew study from 2018. Provisions in the PRO Act were not designed to help small and local businesses and would limit opportunities for gig workers and independent contractors. American workers could lose key employee rights, including Americans' fundamental right to work without being forced to pay dues to or join a union -- or worse, losing their jobs -- if this bill is enacted. The U.S. needs to focus on helping, not hurting, small businesses -- businesses currently struggling to keep their doors open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The tech industry is pulling our economy and stock market forward. Unions preserve the status quo, and union workers might not be shifted quickly to other jobs and projects. Tech companies by nature must pivot on a dime, work swiftly to get the next version or product out faster than competitors and redeploy workers based on changing demand. Tech workers average a higher salary, and employees typically own a portion of the company either through public stock or by equity commitment when working for a startup.
Ironically, the big losers under the PRO Act would be workers -- the very group the law is intended to help. Under the PRO Act, many independent workers would lose the right to enter flexible work arrangements that they seek and value. PRO Act provisions applying to contractors are very similar to California's AB 5 law, which has destroyed thousands of careers by making it difficult for businesses to hire freelancers or independent workers.
Unions are proposing this radical and anti-business shift in workplace rules at the worst possible time. Our economy is fragile, and American businesses are struggling to reopen and emerge from the pandemic. Employers are considering whether to invest in the U.S. or elsewhere, and union demands have made many American companies non-competitive globally. It would be economic suicide to pass laws shifting unions to the default choice of American companies -- unless you want our economy to shift to European-style lackluster performance with slow, if any, GDP growth.
From Your Site Articles * New California law may change NDA impact on workers - Protocol ... > * Tech legislation to watch in 2021 - Protocol -- The people, power ... > * Democrats have won the Senate. Here's what it means for tech ... > Keep Reading Show less Gary Shapiro Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer technology companies. He's also a New York Times bestselling author. unions congress labor opinion sponsored Sponsored Content Building better relationships in the age of all-remote work How Stripe, Xero and ModSquad work with external partners and customers in Slack channels to build stronger, lasting relationships. Image: Original by Damian Zaleski February 21, 2021 Robert Frati, SVP at Slack February 8, 2021 Every business leader knows you can learn the most about your customers and partners by meeting them face-to-face. But in the wake of Covid-19, the kinds of conversations that were taking place over coffee, meals and in company halls are now relegated to video conferences--which can be less effective for nurturing relationships--and email. Email inboxes, with hard-to-search threads and siloed messages, not only slow down communication but are also an easy target for scammers. Earlier this year, Google reported more than 18 million daily malware and phishing emails related to Covid-19 scams in just one week and more than 240 million daily spam messages.To keep the lines of communication wide open in this new reality, organizations are adopting new cloud solutions at a rate CIOs expected to see years from now. In fact, 79% of CIOs agree that the pandemic will force their organizations to digitally transform faster than planned, according to J.P. Morgan.
But executive leaders know it takes more than just adopting a communication platform or software bundle to build relationships remotely. You have to find the right solution that meets both your internal and external collaboration needs. That's why competitive businesses today are turning to Slack, the channel-based messaging platform, to close communication gaps with partners and customers in the age of remote work. Companies can securely collaborate with external parties using Slack channels, a single place to share files and messages, in the same Slack workspace through Slack Connect.
With Slack Connect, organizations can build stronger customer and partner relationships through real-time communication. And unlike email--which leaves users open to the risk of spam and phishing--companies and external parties receive communications only from verified members in Slack channels. Plus, Slack workspace administrators can maintain control over data and monitor external access.
Here's a closer look at how teams at Stripe, Xero and ModSquad are using Slack Connect to engage customers, prospects and partners in real-time and close deals faster.
Stripe is an online payment provider with a mission to support e-commerce. The Stripe sales team works with early-stage startups all the way through global Fortune 500 companies, and uses Slack Connect to engage with customers, keep communication organized and teams in sync, and jump on sales opportunities.
Jeanne DeWitt Grosser, head of Americas revenue and growth at Stripe, says communicating with prospective customers in Slack has been instrumental in maintaining engagement and closing deals.
"Historically, the gold standard of a deep relationship in sales was getting the person on text," says DeWitt Grosser. "Now the gold standard is getting them into a Slack channel."
Usually at the beginning of a sale, DeWitt Grosser explains, reps used to double down on communication using the "law of 2x." Essentially, you start with a meeting and then follow up a week later. But this strategy no longer makes the cut: A lot could change in a week, and Slack is more in line with the tempo of the digital workplace.
"In Slack channels, the dialogue with the prospect happens in real time, as opposed to the next time you align your schedules," DeWitt Grosser says. "This kind of personal, persistent connection grows customer loyalty and retention."
Often sales reps have to communicate with a variety of departments to seal the deal. Instead of emailing them separately and creating silos, Stripe's account executives and solution architects set up a Slack channel with key customer stakeholders, like developers, the head of payments and a finance representative.
"When you need to move quickly, email is not the right format: It's more formal and responses take longer," says James Dyett, Stripe's head of global product sales and payments optimizations. "Slack has super powers. It's a much better experience."
If the pandemic has taught us one
thing, it's that relationships matter. Whether it's launching a
marketing campaign with a partner or hiring contractors to complete a
specific project, we can't--and shouldn't--try to do everything
ourselves.
When it comes to nurturing partnerships in the
midst of the pandemic, Xero, a cloud-based accounting
software company, affirms that working in Slack Connect has been a
game changer. Justine Wallendorf, New Zealand partner marketing
manager at Xero, says Slack Connect helped her team launch a joint
online marketing campaign with partners, Figured and Paysauce.
The three companies were offering a complete software solution for farmers looking to manage their business digitally. By coming together in one Slack channel, #xero-partners, the sales and marketing teams across all three businesses could connect and ensure alignment on:
"Working in Slack Connect guaranteed that everyone was beating the same drum and speaking the same language, positioning our partnership as best as possible in the market," Wallendorf says.
With so much uncertainty in the world, efficient and reliable customer support is akin to a safe harbor in a storm. That's why Slack customer, ModSquad has its support teams troubleshoot customer issues in real time with Slack Connect.
As a customer experience outsourcer, ModSquad knows good customer service. Each day, ModSquad's global crew of experts--the Mods--help their customers engage with their audiences online through customer support, content moderation, community management and social media.
ModSquad works with its clients in Slack Connect to set up service level agreements and incorporate support dashboards. With the Geckoboard Slack integration, ModSquad monitors clients' incoming calls and chats--without ever leaving Slack. Whenever the team sees an uptick in activity or service impacting issues, they can quickly alert clients and internal teams for quick resolution. The team also relies on a Zendesk Slack integration to track service desk tickets, troubleshoot and resolve issues.
According to Steve Henry, senior vice president, client services at ModSquad, Slack channels also help build a culture of transparent communication and trust with clients.
"Establishing trust with our clients is very important, and Slack provides a crucial component for all of our efforts" Henry says. "With Slack, we can provide world-class support solutions and improvements for our clients, driving efficiencies while growing their business in the process."
Slack Connect is available for all paid plans. If you're already a customer but new to Slack Connect, feel free to reach out or learn more on how to get started. And if you want to see how others are using Slack Connect to work with external partners, check out a few of our recent customer stories.
Keep Reading Show less Robert Frati, SVP at Slack slack channel work from home relationships sponsored Protocol | China More women are joining China's tech elite, but 'Wolf Culture' isn't going away [DEL::DEL]It turns out getting rid of misogyny in Chinese tech isn't just a numbers game. Chinese tech companies that claim to value female empowerment may act differently behind closed doors. Photo: Qilai Shen/Getty Images January 27, 2021 Shen Lu Shen Lu is a Reporter with Protocol | China. She has spent six years covering China from inside and outside its borders. Previously, she was a fellow at Asia Society's ChinaFile and a Beijing-based producer for CNN. Her writing has appeared in Foreign Policy, The New York Times and POLITICO, among other publications. Shen Lu is a founding member of Chinese Storytellers, a community serving and elevating Chinese professionals in the global media industry. January 27, 2021 A woman we'll call Fan had heard about the men of Alibaba before she joined its high-profile affiliate about three years ago. Some of them were "greasy," she said, to use a Chinese term often describing middle-aged men with poor boundaries. Fan tells Protocol that lewd conversations were omnipresent at team meetings and private events, and even women would feel compelled to crack off-color jokes in front of the men. Some male supervisors treated younger female colleagues like personal assistants. Within six months, despite the cachet the lucrative job carried, Fan wanted to quit. A woman we'll call Zhang had a similar experience at her former employer, Baidu. She told Protocol that senior colleagues joked that Zhang and her younger female coworkers were hired to "please their eyes."Alibaba and Baidu look and act like they value female empowerment. Alibaba, the ecommerce giant, hosts a Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship every year. Its founder, Jack Ma, has positioned himself as a champion for women and has repeatedly said that Alibaba owes its success to its female workers. Ma has touted the company's relatively hefty share of women in top management -- currently, six out of 14 of the most senior roles are staffed by women. Search engine behemoth Baidu, too, likes to tout its relatively high ratio -- 46% -- of women in management.
"Workplace equality is a core value of Baidu. Female employees account for 43% of Baidu's workforce and 46% of management. Women play significant roles as top executives of the company driving technology innovation and strategy," Baidu said in an email reply. Alibaba did not respond to Protocol's requests for comment.
So why do women like Fan and Zhang have such a rough go of it?
This is the terrible paradox at the heart of Chinese tech, one that will threaten its capacity to innovate in the future. A wave of Chinese women are joining elite tech companies and their boardrooms, often in numbers that compare favorably to tech industries abroad, but it turns out that getting rid of sexism is far more than a numbers game. Women in Chinese tech are marginalized, demoralized and exhausted. When they get home, they're still expected to shoulder most of the childcare and household chores.
The result: Those who manage to ascend have to learn to play -- and win -- a man's game. This paradox is going to sharpen as more women enter tech and become aware of gender inequality.
Women are increasingly populating Chinese tech offices. Data shows that some of China's biggest internet companies, including ByteDance, Baidu and ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing , each employ at least 40% female staff. By way of comparison, statistics show that female employees fill between 28% and 42% of roles at America's five largest tech companies. In India, women make up 34% of the tech workforce; in the U.K., the figure is 19%.
Women have also made it into Chinese tech leadership. Seventy percent of Chinese startups have at least one female executive, a higher proportion than companies in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, according to a 2019 survey conducted by Silicon Valley Bank. And more than 1,000 women have made it into the boardrooms of China's public tech companies, according to a study conducted by Tianyancha, a data technology service company.
Yet Alibaba and Baidu are not the only "greasy" companies. Leading Chinese tech firms, including Tencent, have posted job ads depicting their female employees as "pretty" or "goddesses" to attract male candidates, according to a 2018 Human Rights Watch report. In 2017, WeChat's parent company Tencent apologized after footage emerged of a corporate event where female employees were kneeling while using their teeth to open water bottles placed between men's legs. A 2012 job ad for food-delivery group Meituan declared that "finding a job equals finding a woman," featuring a suggestive image of a thong hanging between a woman's legs. "Do what you most want to do," the ad concluded, using a verb for "do" that colloquially means "fuck." In the years since, Meituan has repeatedly depicted young women in its promotional ads as food on the plate for delivery.
In gender studies, the theory of critical mass hypothesizes that deliberative bodies must be made up of at least 30% women to impact policymaking. But at least when it comes to tech, it's clear that neither a high percentage of female execs nor a workforce approaching gender parity equate to workplace equality. Julie Yujie Chen, who teaches at the University of Toronto and has researched the experience of Chinese women in tech, doesn't believe the presence of more women executives in a Chinese tech company will work in favor of female employees. "Women in tech is not a representation issue," she told Protocol. "It is about challenging the norms."
Lin Zhang, an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire who has interviewed dozens of female entrepreneurs in China's tech companies, said many of the women who thrive in this ultra-competitive, male-dominated industry not only have become resigned to workplace masculinity and sexism, but have internalized it. "Because of the generally hostile gender culture in China, there's not much solidarity among women," Zhang said. "Now that they're up there, they feel like, 'I have paid my dues. It's your turn.'"
Alibaba's Fan echoes this: "Although women are much present in Alibaba's senior management, they all have transformed themselves to be greasier than the men. That's how they entered that powerful circle."
Shi is a 30-year-old manager of a content-producing team at Nasdaq-listed video-sharing platform Bilibili. Like Fan and the other female tech workers interviewed for this story, she spoke to Protocol on the condition that she be identified by a pseudonym to avoid retaliation from her employer. Shi said the women in her company leadership "completely subscribe to the 'wolf' mentality. They are just as territorial, aggressive and exploitative as the men."
One result is tech products that objectify women and reinforce gender stereotypes, at least in the way they are marketed and used. Didi Chuxing is helmed by a woman -- company president Jean Liu -- and Didi's staff was 40% female in 2017, the most recent year for which statistics are available. However, it encountered scandal with Hitch, a carpooling service launched in 2015 that suggested hookups between drivers and passengers in its 2018 ads. Two female Hitch passengers were raped and killed that same year. The general manager at Hitch was a woman named Huang Jieli.
Even relatively "woke" Chinese companies demand a lot of their employees. A major culprit is Chinese tech's infamous 996 work schedule -- 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days per week -- which can wear workers down. I spoke with most interviewees after 10 p.m. in China, after they had finished a long day's work. Message alerts from colleagues often interrupted our conversations.
This work culture further disadvantages women because of the larger milieu in which they live. Women still shoulder most of the childcare and housework burden in Chinese households. A 2019 National Bureau of Statistics report showed that women spent more than twice as much time as men on unpaid household work. "The lack of reliable childcare service becomes a structural barrier for women to advance their career," said Chen, "especially in sectors like the tech industry."
Although a large number of young Chinese women have joined tech, they are more likely to concentrate at the lower end of the skill and productivity spectrum, such as human resources, public relations and business operations. Programming, often the power center, remains a male-dominated division, with female programmers comprising only 10.4% of its ranks in 2020, according to a report by Chinese digital working platform Proginn. (In the U.S., figures range between 8% and 11%.)
Of course, China has its share of relatively egalitarian companies. Take ByteDance. While it spent last year at the center of U.S. controversy over data-sharing with Beijing, it's seen at home as valuing diversity and inclusion. Dong, who works in the ByteDance HR department, told Protocol she chose the company for its relatively egalitarian culture. It was the only prospective employer that did not inquire about her marital status when she was job-hunting in 2018, and the supervisor of the department she was interviewing for was a woman in her late 30s.
But Dong thinks ByteDance is swimming against the tide. She says several senior female colleagues in her team still had to quit because they couldn't juggle work and childcare demands. It's not a problem unique to China, but female workers there are getting less help than in other countries. "Tech companies in other countries are trying to create a better environment for female workers who face similar social expectations," Dong said. "But in China, they won't specifically create supportive policies for you. The baseline is lower. It's like, 'I'm already doing well by not treating you badly.'"