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Show HN: Rank And File – a platform for employee activism (rankandfile.me)

5 points by vmurthy ↗ HN
Friends, HNers , countrymen: tl;dr Employee Unions are dead (non-existent in tech). A collective where employees own shares in the company they work for should give a voice to the employees with the management.

I am happy to launch Rank And File, a platform for employee activism. Think Institutional Investors but instead of suits, it is employees who own a large number of shares in their own company and act as a collective.

R&F aims to provide a private forum for employees to discuss company policies and act as a platform where employees can connect with legal experts and activists who will help them.

what aspects of this do you think can work? What won't?

4 comments

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nextts
Does rank and file "work" for regular employees who don't have company shares? I.e. does it help people facilitate a union?

You say unions are dead but this feels closest to a union (union platform) anyway. If the employees own the company that is probably a partnership.

vmurthy
@nextts: I think that even having a single share is beneficial in that it enables the platform as a whole from becoming another venting place. Having shares means skin-in-the-game so I wouldn't go down the route of not having shares
ideashower
I mean I get this but creating better organizing tools for employees to organize safely and semi-anonymously is probably more urgently needed, no?
vmurthy
@ideashower, In principle, I agree . But the overlords won't care or will quash it down. This way, the employee collective wields some power in a legal way and the overlords have to work harder to quash it down