[HN Gopher] A group of Google workers have announced plans to un...
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A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize
Author : virde
Score : 1499 points
Date : 2021-01-04 11:31 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| underseacables wrote:
| Unions at Google strike me as rich people complaining about not
| enough assigned parking. For an industry of free lunch, massages,
| and unbelievable perks and benefits, talk of unionizing is just
| tone-deaf.
| davidfekke wrote:
| I am not sure what good it will do to join a Union if you can't
| collectively bargain. You would essentially be paying dues out of
| your salary, and not getting anything in return. If you don't
| like Google, then quit.
| docdeek wrote:
| > If the union effort at Google is successful, members say they
| will commit one percent of their annual compensation to the
| union.
|
| Is that a standard rate for union dues? I've never joined a union
| myself in the past and have no reference point for a 1% figure.
| captainmuon wrote:
| Don't know about the US, but 1% is the standard in Germany.
| (Unions here work a bit different, they are not per-company but
| nationwide and you get a couple of benefits like legal
| insurance etc.)
| istjohn wrote:
| US unions are not typically per-company either.
| akhilcacharya wrote:
| But in the US they bargain on the enterprise level, not by
| sector. I think that was the implication in the comment.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectoral_collective_bargainin
| g...
| captainmuon wrote:
| Exactly. And as far as I understand the closest thing to
| US "to unionize" is a to set up a "worker's council",
| which is actually mandatory for companies above a certain
| size.
|
| From a European view it is strange that this is a big
| deal.
| maeln wrote:
| In France 1% is a common union fee.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Yeah, I think 1% is standard. I think our dues were 1.5%, but I
| can't find my old contract right this second. We got a
| guaranteed 3% annual raise as part of the contract (in addition
| to any other raises or promotions), so for us, even in a pure
| cost perspective, the union was a net win, irrespective of all
| the other benefits.
|
| Unfortunately, and I say this as a big fan and supporter of
| unions, I don't see this drive being successful. Compensation
| and job security are some of the mains reasons people unionize.
| Companies like Google already offer cost-of-living raises
| annually, in addition to stock and bonus compensation.
|
| The challenge for most tech companies attempting to unionize --
| and by this, I mean staff including engineers, not simply the
| employees who don't reap spoils, like janitors, bus drivers,
| receptionists, cafeteria staff, etc. -- is that the reason to
| unionize is largely _not_ going to be about pay. Because
| realistically, I have doubts in a CBA (which this is not, but
| let's assume there was a scenario with one) being more
| effective at negotiating salary levels than the current system
| that exists. This isn't true for all tech companies; most
| employees at a game studio, for example, could almost certainly
| benefit from a CBA.
|
| Still, the challenge for an all-encompassing union like this is
| that for most employees, a union won't effect compensation (and
| when it will, it'll impact the bottom wrung -- which is
| important, but makes it harder to get mass buy-in from the rank
| and file), it won't effect perks, it won't effect medical care,
| parental leave, insurance. All of these things tend to be best-
| in-class, at least in the United States. So instead, you're
| talking about fighting for a union for equally important, but
| much more difficult to quantify, areas like a voice in what
| types of contract bids or programs the company takes, hiring
| policies, sexual harassment policies, etc.
|
| And it's specifically that difficulty that has led the CWA to
| organize this as a minority union. And that's exactly why
| although I applaud the efforts to do this, I doubt very much it
| will be effective at all.
|
| To me, a better approach would have been to have a more
| organized approach focused on specific types of employees,
| especially vendors/contractors. This "anyone can join but we
| don't have a CBA and aren't recognized by the NLRB" thing
| strikes me as much more akin to trying to form an employee-
| focused internal lobbying group, rather than an actual union.
| tomerbd wrote:
| Vacation days compensation for being on call
| gtsop wrote:
| I see many valid concerns in this thread regarding the structure
| and purpose of unions.
|
| What I can't unsee is the lack of will to make something that
| work. If "union" was a category of software we would be having a
| couple leading FOSS projects pioneering good practices and we
| would argue about which is better and do RFCs. Now all we do is
| complain how nothing works instead of trying to work this out.
| zer0faith wrote:
| The reason for these folks unionizing is not for the traditional
| reasons (higher wages, better benefits, work life balance,
| keeping the company from running you over, ect...) This is more
| along the lines of being able to protest work that is consider
| unethical (IE the AI noted in the article, working with other
| gov'ts ect...) and not be penalized or fired for it.
| Unfortunately, I don't believe that a union is the answer for
| their problem because so long as there is money to fund a project
| there will be people lined up to work.
| psaintlaurent wrote:
| I have an ugly truth for Google employees, unions don't mean
| anything, in NYC if you are in a union or married to a union
| employee you will eventually become a victim of targeted
| harassment campaigns by people with connections to government
| when they want you out of your job or spending money. Almost all
| unions or stable jobs have people who believe they "control" the
| jobs.
|
| They will attempt to destroy you and your family any way
| possible.
|
| I've personally been the victim of targeted harassment campaigns.
| I was punched in the face in broad daylight on the way to work.
| Someone vandalized my home, stole every valuable item I own and
| threatened my daughters life. My car was damaged and the
| mechanics wouldn't fix it properly because they were afraid of
| retaliation. My wife's car was repeatedly vandalized to get her
| spending money on a mechanic and then eventually force her to buy
| another car. Someone even hit me with an electronic weapon while
| I was sleeping and burned me, I still don't know how the fuck
| someone got hold of an electronic weapon.
|
| The entire point of these harassment campaigns is to force you to
| spend money on luxury garbage, mechanics, car dealers, house
| cleaning services. etc.
|
| If you contact the authorities for help, no one is going to help
| you out of fear of retaliation. They give you lip service even if
| you have video evidence (I have actual audio, video and image
| evidence all of this happened)
|
| I had an actual conversation with someone last night who drove
| past my house asking why the police were at my home:
|
| Me: "Someone left a threatening letter on my door." Person: "If
| you just purchase enough from us we can call up our friends and
| get you help otherwise there is always cancer."
| howlgarnish wrote:
| I mean this in the kindest possible way: have you consulted a
| psychiatrist? Feeling like you are being persecuted by shadowy,
| all-powerful enemies is a common symptom of schizophrenia.
| mountainb wrote:
| The assumption that they would have to be hallucinating to be
| recounting a standard tale of union intimidation is very
| funny. That's what a union is for: thugging on people. You
| have to have soft hands to believe anything else.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Isn't that tale the reverse of that - i.e. a tale of
| intimidating union members?
|
| I find it hard to believe stuff like this would fly in a
| major city of a western country in 21st century, even in
| the United States. Though I can't honestly discount it
| completely either...
| swebs wrote:
| Look up the story of Jimmy Hoffa sometime. Its really
| fascinating.
| rzodkiew wrote:
| After watching "Union Time"[1], I'm not finding it that
| hard to believe. It was really shocking to see shit like
| that fly in a civilised society.
|
| [1]: https://www.uniontimefilm.org
| KLexpat wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_into_Trade
| _Un...
|
| Commissioner Heydon found that corruption was widespread
| and deep-seated, and recommended a new national regulator
| with the same powers as the Australian Securities and
| Investments Commission be established to combat
| corruption in the trade union movement. The Report
| highlighted insufficient record keeping (including false
| invoicing and destruction of documents); "rubber stamp"
| committees which failed to enforce rules; payment of
| large sums by employers to unions; and influence peddling
| by means of the inflation of union membership figures.
| The Report recommended a toughening of financial
| disclosure rules, new civil penalties to bind workers and
| officials on financial disclosure provisions; a new
| criminal offence.[50] Frank Bongiorno, Professor of
| History at the Australian National University, has
| described this report as having "all the impact of last
| year's telephone book being dumped in a wheelie-bin.
|
| https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/mick-gatto-
| broug...
|
| Mafia boss settles disputes between real estate
| developers and union boss, no worries mate! "Building
| industry sources said it appeared the parties had opted
| to use Mr Gatto to settle their issues rather than
| involve police."
| psaintlaurent wrote:
| No psychiatrist necessary (PROOF):
|
| https://twitter.com/psaintlaurent0/status/132951417338719028.
| ..
|
| https://twitter.com/psaintlaurent0/status/134244904875058380.
| ..
|
| https://twitter.com/psaintlaurent0/status/132883496079975628.
| ..
|
| https://twitter.com/psaintlaurent0/status/131211998307427942.
| ..
|
| https://twitter.com/psaintlaurent0/status/125889480453833932.
| ..
| secondcoming wrote:
| Have your house checked for carbon monoxide leaks.
| q3k wrote:
| Either way, you have been through a lot - you should
| probably see a psychiatrist regardless.
| KLexpat wrote:
| former resident of your property could have been mixed up with
| organised crime.
|
| its common enough, you move into a house and random gangs show
| up looking for money etc that the previous resident owed them.
| They aren't going to take no for an answer because they'll get
| punished for not extracting wealth when they report back to el
| jefe
| avolcano wrote:
| Wapo has more details about the structure of the union, which is
| apparently nontraditional and won't go through NLRB ratification:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/04/google-...
|
| However, while that article says they will not be able to be a
| collective bargaining unit under US law with that structure, the
| announcement oped in the NY Times
| (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/opinion/google-union.html)
| implies they will be pursuing becoming one, so not sure if that
| nontraditional structure is temporary or if the Post got some
| details wrong.
| gcr wrote:
| You don't necessarily need an NLRB contract to get wins for
| employees, though the legal protection certainly helps.
|
| I understand AWU is currently following the CWA "Solidarity
| Union" model: not currently seeking recognition but may choose
| to do so in the future.
|
| (Disclosure: I am a member of AWU)
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| There is a great line of research that part of labor's
| downfall in the postwar era was due to becoming to
| legalized/instituionalized, creating a hysteresis trap were
| the unions official power (laws and norms) lagged behind the
| underlying conditions that give it real power (labor scarcity
| + worker radicalization). Workers got complacent and
| depoliticized starting with the red scare, and edges along by
| shitty union leadership, and the whole Regan era turnabout
| was less a right-wing conspiracy and more the hysteresis
| delay coming to an an end.
|
| Members-only unions and whatnot that forgo the NRLB are
| "riskier" in some sense, but that vary precarity / forgoing
| of intertia can avoid the lag and help keep the union
| vigilant.
|
| See a popular exposition in
| https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/uaw-academic-workers-
| coll..., which is a better piece than much Jacobin stuff I
| might add.
| firefoxd wrote:
| 230 out 100k+ want to unionize? It would be nice for sure, but
| unions are not coming back[1].
|
| The campaign to disrupt unions was successful and they are easily
| dismantled without breaking the law. Yet the employees still need
| protection. Unions have been sorta replaced by HR. Employees
| almost always go to HR to resolve issues but they forget that
| this entity is for the company, by the company.
|
| If we want to make any impact I think HR is where we start. We
| turn it into a public and legal entity, required by law if the
| company reaches a certain size. And it reports to the state
| government.
|
| [1]: https://idiallo.com/blog/unions-are-not-coming-back
| TedShiller wrote:
| I know who's not getting promoted
| bregma wrote:
| Shouldn't the headline read "former Google workers" by now?
| ur-whale wrote:
| I'm hearing that since the COVID, many Google workers are being
| deprived of their 3 free meals a day and access to the gym.
|
| Clearly unacceptable, time to unionize.
| Animats wrote:
| This isn't a real union. It's more a lobbying association, like
| the IEEE. They're not trying to get a contract with Google.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I've asked before and no one seems to know: what is unionising
| meant to achieve for these workers? Are they under compensated?
| Are they getting fired for unfair reasons? I thought big tech had
| the opposite problem: everyone gets 6 figures, no one gets fired
| you just get moved to a do nothing team...
| logicchains wrote:
| Google hired a toxic political activist, then later fired them
| for being too toxic. In this case, from reading the union goals
| it looks like they're aiming to make it harder to fire toxic
| political activists in future.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I hate the political bs side of these things. A bit turn off
| for me here in the UK is when unions spend capital (political
| or cash) on issues that don't help or even hurt their
| members. Teachers unions here supported more work and less
| money for them because "think of the children". Asking people
| to collectively bargain is very different to asking them to
| collectively sign up and forgo their wages over some weird
| political point of principle. The a two should be separate.
| falcor84 wrote:
| Nitpick: I was surprised to see them say "Earlier this year"
| regarding the union in Kickstarter - that was of course in 2020
| which is now last year :)
| confidantlake wrote:
| We just had a thread about the abusive conditions at apple. A
| union could help address that behavior.
| j45 wrote:
| If unions are about collective and not selective workers rights,
| what types of workers rights are missing not only at Google, but
| FAANG?
|
| We hear lots about unions... or lack of them stifling access to
| opportunity or innovation, I'm curious to learn more about:
|
| - What a modernized or reimagined practice of a union could look
| like where it wasn't anchored in the world changing slowly,
| instead of quickly?
|
| - How might a reimagined union focused on today's issues with
| today's approaches in the 21st century look and start much
| differently than one incarnated a few hundred years ago? Is there
| a step change possible or already occurred in some cases?
|
| - How can unions overcome the issues that other bureaucracies
| (enterprise, Govt, education, health, etc) experience, including
| in some cases inhibiting change at the goal of self preservation?
| mkohlmyr wrote:
| 230 Google workers announce plans to unionize, ftfy
| qrbLPHiKpiux wrote:
| 230 ex google employees tried to form a union
| horsemans wrote:
| Where do you see in the article that they aren't current
| Google employees?
| huhtenberg wrote:
| The GP was making a joke.
| [deleted]
| foxhop wrote:
| The assumption is that the employees will be terminated,
| fired, let go, or quit because creating unions is really
| hard in the USA, especially in industry which has no
| precedent.
| Forge36 wrote:
| The negative implication is suggesting they'll be fired
| throwawaysea wrote:
| This seems like a common tactic with many of these employee
| activist campaigns. They partner with a sympathetic news media
| outlet that will amplify their story (examples: Vox, Geekwire,
| etc.) but leave out details and perspectives that undermine
| their push - like how few employees are behind it. If you look
| at past activist campaigns (for example people trying to stop
| AWS from working with the US government), it's the same story
| of trying to paint a picture of widespread support where there
| isn't any.
| mindrunner wrote:
| I don't think H1Bs will unionize, there's too much too lose if
| they get fired.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| What leverage do unions have over salaries? Google is a very
| profitable company, redirecting half of the profit from
| shareholders to employees would result in a very significant
| salary increase.
|
| (Just curious, I'm not stating any opinion on this.)
| gcr wrote:
| AWU includes temps, vendors, and contractors (TVCs), who are
| not at all paid the way full-time employees are. I'm sure
| there's a lot of gains to make to ensure everyone has equitable
| pay.
|
| That said, a lot of work that AWU is doing focuses on values
| organizing and employee ethics. Structures like this union help
| balance the power between workers and executives at Alphabet.
| chasd00 wrote:
| that's ominous, so if you don't tow the union line on the
| social issue of the day then they can prevent you from being
| a member which will be required for employment?
| ATsch wrote:
| Unlike corporations like Google, who would never fire
| (sorry, "quit voluntarily") someone for criticizing the
| stance of the company on social issues.
| visarga wrote:
| Yeah, they should have taken her punch right to the face
| with a smile, without flinching, then apologized to her.
| Instead they said 'yes, right now' when she said 'here
| are my terms, you got to accept them or I leave'. Who
| would do that?
| ATsch wrote:
| I'm confused, is losing your job for disagreement on
| social issues good or bad now? Or do these concerns about
| the people and factors that decide who does and doesn't
| get to work somewhere mysteriously stop and start at
| unions.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| They could at least admit she was terminated and not this
| "accept resignation" hogwash. I have no issue firing a
| worker who encourages peers to put less effort into the
| job. But at least say you're doing so!
| losvedir wrote:
| What do you mean by profit going to shareholders? Alphabet
| doesn't have a dividend.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| It's either reinvested or saved in the bank so it stays in
| the ownership of shareholders.
|
| In general, reinvestment is preferred over dividends (or
| stock buybacks which is similar to dividends) when it's
| expected that the reinvestment will generate a good return in
| the future and this return would be given to shareholders.
| ATsch wrote:
| That depends on a number of things. Theoretically the leverage
| is infinite, as companies can not get anything done without
| workers. However in practice, strike funds won't last forever,
| people won't be willing to strike forever, it's in your
| interest to keep a relatively good relationship with the
| company, etc.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Granted, it will vary person to person for a lot of good
| reasons, but it seems to me like the average white-collar
| tech worker out have a _lot_ more personal savings than the
| average blue-collar factory worker.
| notRobot wrote:
| Many people don't realise this but unions don't just negotiate
| salaries. They assure rights aren't being violated, promote
| ethical, safe and healthy workplaces, prevent and fight against
| discrimination and unfair treatment, fight wrongful dismissal,
| etc.
| yvdriess wrote:
| Indeed. HR has incentives to side with the employer, where a
| union rep has incentives to side with the employee.
|
| In Belgium, every company of a certain size is required to have
| a union rep. They provide a lot of services you would expect HR
| to provide: being the point of contact for complains, clarify
| certain rights and obligations, etc. Even when a national
| holiday falls on a weekend, the company has to agree with the
| union rep how that will be recuperated. Unions in Belgium
| typically do not negotiate salaries, except for cases where
| there's statutes involved (e.g. gov workers like teachers).
| [deleted]
| xiaq wrote:
| A tangential point, but I find it weird and somewhat amusing that
| an article on US Google employees should use a photo of Google's
| London engineering office. Maybe they don't have a good shot of a
| lot of people standing in front of some US office?
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| the article makes it sound like this union will not be about
| collective bargaining
| borishn wrote:
| Old tech companies had heavy machinery and workers were
| relatively easy to train and replace. The high-tech companies are
| nothing without their workers. I think in the future the high
| tech employees unions will be able to steer a larger share of
| profits towards themselves.
| denkmoon wrote:
| Come all you good workers, Good news to you I'll tell Of how the
| good old union Has come in here to dwell.
| theodric wrote:
| Somebody's about to get At-Will-State'd
| knuckleheads wrote:
| Sending my heartfelt and sincere congratulations to the workers
| at Google who have unionized. There's power in a union and I'm
| extremely heartened to see them get together and organize.
| ancorevard wrote:
| The company is slowly dying internally from ideologically
| possessed people.
|
| Not that that is a bad thing, the great people there will leave
| for better things.
| dubcanada wrote:
| It seems that Hacker News is rather anti union. I am not sure I
| fully understand what peoples opposition towards a union is.
|
| I've honestly never heard of a negative thing about unions beyond
| silly unproven things like "unions don't innovate" or other
| nonsense.
| matz1 wrote:
| Simply, union interest is not the same as company interest. Its
| maybe good for the employee but not good for the company.
|
| One example of negative things of an union: It makes harder for
| company to fire people.
|
| Look at teachers union right now, they are fighting by all
| means to refuse to come back teaching in person. Teaching
| online benefit the teacher but really sucks for the kids and
| parents.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| That's both reductive and false. The employees benefit when
| the company does well. A union just fights to have the
| employees share more in that success.
| matz1 wrote:
| > The employees benefit when the company does well
|
| Not really, for example it would be benefit the company to
| reduce expense by improving automation/efficiency by
| reducing the number of employee.
|
| I wouldn't say it benefited the employee to get sacked.
| maxdo wrote:
| I called ConEd and union workers were slacking by my house the
| entire working day. At the end of the day they went out , checked
| my cord, said nothing wrong and finished the day. I heard many
| other similar stories like this. If google will face this
| situation they'll just move their workforce elsewhere except some
| numbers of really great talents , and those will be motivated.
| bborud wrote:
| As a Norwegian I am often confused by unions in the US.
|
| https://www.nho.no/en/english/articles/collective-bargaining...
| https://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Rela...
| rmk wrote:
| This union appears to have formed primarily as a means for
| political activism. This is just the worst type of union, because
| members are implicitly assumed to agree with the union's
| political ideals (can you imagine conservatives joining this
| union in large numbers?) and also because if it grows large
| enough, it may make moves to become certified. That will put paid
| to Googles chances of doing business as it sees fit without any
| regard to the politics of what they do. How would collective
| bargaining work at Google? What would be the demands of such a
| bargaining group, aside from purely political items?
| amelius wrote:
| Perhaps App store publishers can unionize too. For example,
| instead of having small companies publishing apps themselves,
| they can have an organization do it for them, so it's big
| organization versus BigCorp, instead of little guy versus
| BigCorp. Also, it could provide some more transparency of the App
| Store sales.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Is there precedent for a group of unrelated individuals who
| happen to be in the same industry 'unionizing' ?
|
| Edit: answer of course is guilds, thanks commenters :) The word
| union threw me off. One could totally imagine an 'app
| developers guild' to help defend against the big guys. Go start
| one!
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| "Trade association" would be the more common term for
| business owners.
| jononor wrote:
| Practically all unions in Norway work that way. Benefit of
| not having the union tied to the employers:
|
| - Large and resourceful union even for employees in small
| companies.
|
| - Not too tight with any particular company, helps keep the
| workers rights in focus
|
| - Continuity when switching employeers
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| As other have noted, guilds, especially around movie and
| television production. The WGA, SAG-AFTRA, DGA, PGA, are some
| examples. There are some newspaper specific guilds, though
| some of them are part of the CWA or other affiliate unions.
|
| And of course, some of those guilds have a choice in contract
| types, staff or freelance. The WGAE, where I was a member and
| part of the negotiating committee for my then-employer, had
| its own CBA for our "shop" -- but the WGA and WGAE also have
| MBAs (minimum bargaining agreements) for freelancers, which
| is the more traditional model for entertainment guilds
| (though WGAE in particular has shifted a lot of its
| attentions to staff contracts).
| Marazan wrote:
| Screen Actors Guild
| MachineBurning wrote:
| Guilds?
| wasmitnetzen wrote:
| In Germany, there are "Genossenschaften"[1], which are
| cooperatives organized by small members to further a common
| commercial interest. For example, winemakers, which are often
| family businesses (at least in the area I'm from), often form
| them to sell wine, to have better leverage against the
| buyers, which are usually big companies like Aldi.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eingetragene_Genossenschaft
| humanrebar wrote:
| They have these in the U.S. Chambers of Commerce and
| industry organizations, especially lobbying groups, are
| numerous.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I believe this would be illegal under price fixing laws in
| many countries.
|
| Multiple companies colluding to set certain terms on sales
| is illegal in many places.
| orange_tee wrote:
| Yes. Cooperatives. Farmer cooperatives are quite common for
| example. Basically, freelancers who have to negotiate with
| the same small number of other entities can form a
| cooperative to both handle the admin and also allow them to
| negotiate as one.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Producer coops are common in the USA part of KFC is one I
| seem to recall.
|
| Worker coop is quite different - having been a member of
| one in the UK - I Know one UK union looked at forming a
| coop to get round IR35
| mrweasel wrote:
| It's that pretty normal? That's what unions generally are, or
| am I misunderstanding your question. Denmark have/had unions
| for "office workers", engineers in general, steel workers and
| more. They are in the same industry, mostly, but they don't
| work for the same company.
|
| The members of these unions are generally unrelated, they
| just have jobs in the same sector of industry or very similar
| education.
|
| I think the weird part is when a union just represent the
| people working for one particular company.
| apexalpha wrote:
| In the Netherlands dairy farmers formed their own cooperative
| so sell dairy products to prevent 3rd party 'big dairy'
| corporations from playing them against each other on price
| and quality.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FrieslandCampina
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| "Guild" might not go down to well in the USA as it sadly
| implies restrictive practices (descrimation against black
| workers) - read up on the early labour history in the USA.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| And sometimes the guild took the reins from the the state!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League
|
| Say what you will about (proto-)mercantilism vs capitalism,
| but I rather live under guild-ocracy then cyberpunk megacrop-
| ocracy.
| praptak wrote:
| Yeah, a pretty big one: craft guilds.
| koonsolo wrote:
| As long as it doesn't turn out to be Animal Farm.
| beberlei wrote:
| And this organization and big corp then take a combined 30% of
| all revenue.
| xibalba wrote:
| I think we should all pause and consider how it is that at a 120k
| person company, an announcement by 230 people to unionize makes
| headline news.
|
| Could it be yet another instance of a "journalist" acting as
| advocate?
| geodel wrote:
| Correct. Just another day and another views as news item.
| zeckalpha wrote:
| > It was the first time white-collar employees in the tech
| industry had unionized.
|
| What? CWA, mentioned in the article, isn't a new thing, and
| that's just one example.
| oriettaxx wrote:
| > Google workers announce plans to unionise
|
| uh, are they still not unionised? weird.
|
| what to say: I hope it is not just an announce.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Good luck! From a fellow unionized digital worker. I work at
| Kakao, a South Korean firm known for KakaoTalk (the dominant
| messenger application in South Korea).
| joeblau wrote:
| How would you describe your experience being a unionized
| digital worker?
| sanxiyn wrote:
| It's pretty good. For example, initially the company was
| reluctant to transition to remote work for COVID-19 pandemic,
| but workers' concern was well represented.
|
| My impression is that among South Korean digital companies,
| unionized companies transitioned to remote work earlier.
| dudul wrote:
| 1) COVID is a highly atypical situation. Other than during
| a once in a lifetime global pandemic, which
| benefits/drawbacks do you experience?
|
| 2) Most US companies had no problem going full remote some
| time during the spring of 2020, doesn't look like "unions"
| play a big role there.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| I just used the recent example that comes to mind.
|
| The most prominent benefit is fight over overtime pay. In
| fact overtime pay is what triggered unionization in South
| Korean IT sector. Pre-unionization, basically no one in
| South Korean IT paid overtime. It is legally a gray area.
| Then Naver (the dominant search engine in South Korea)
| unionized over overtime pay and won. Other companies,
| including Kakao, quickly followed and all won. Naver
| union shared their know-how to other union organizers.
| jinkyu wrote:
| people need to realize they're paid what they're worth (and come
| on... google pays VERY well). unionizing so you don't work in
| environments bad for your health is a thing. unionizing so you
| can extort money from your employer, however, is a slippery slope
| that leads to a few people at the top of the heap causing lots of
| trouble for the company, probably its members (dues... or else!)
| and those union leaders get nice houses on ski slopes. best of
| luck google!
| cft wrote:
| This could be the beginning of tech stock market crash. If that
| effort succeeds that is
| spodek wrote:
| Less profits would go to shareholders, which could lower its
| stock price, but that doesn't mean the company would produce
| less. More share of profits going to employees could increase
| productivity and social good to the world. I'm not calling that
| result inevitable, but possible and up to the company
| leadership.
| objclxt wrote:
| Why? Many successful companies are fully unionised. How many
| people creating content at Disney do you think are card
| carrying members of a union (the answer: nearly all of them).
| throwoutttt wrote:
| That must be why Disney needs to buy Star Wars and Marvel,
| because they're so great at innovating their own content
| roamerz wrote:
| This is like buying a house that is built close to an airport and
| then suing to have it shut down because you don't like the noise
| of planes taking off. Google did not have a union when you asked
| them to hire you - which you happily accepted. Now your plan is
| to collectively mutiny against your employer to extort additional
| control or compensation. I've always believed that you treat your
| employer with the respect they garner by supporting you and your
| family. If you are not satisfied with you income or relationship
| with your employer go seek other avenues. Just my 2 cents.
| jp_sc wrote:
| The Verge is down, but the post can be read here:
| https://archive.is/PWbbw
| spicyramen wrote:
| Downvote me if you want, but as a SWE I find my job very highly
| rewarded both economically and technically. I'm happy where I am
| and in my team. I'm a minority and I have study all my life to be
| competitive, I have been treated fairly because of my skills.
| Free food, gym, coffee, stocks, high salaries, mobility, not sure
| I can ask for more
| dogprez wrote:
| I can't speak the the intent of the union in the article but
| after all of those things you listed you might want to know
| that your colleagues are getting treated fairly as well. For
| example, how would you feel about all your benefits if you
| learned there were contractors that did your same job that
| didn't have access to the same benefits that you have and
| haven't been given an avenue to earn those benefits? (https://w
| ww.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-11-08...)
|
| Or, how would your feel if the product you worked on was being
| produced with slave labor?
| (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/29/lens-
| te...) Would it be enough to just say, "I'm not ok with that,
| I'll work somewhere else." or do you think you should have some
| say about how your work is used?
| kepler1 wrote:
| Unions are about locking in a minimum standard of work on
| something that doesn't change, stifling innovation, covering for
| underperforming colleagues, rewarding people based on how long
| they've been around, making things cost more than they should be,
| and worse.
|
| Why would I ever want to support such a system, in an industry
| that has brought innovative technology and material improvement
| in living standards and knowledge to billions of people?
| [deleted]
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Unions are just a way to have some kind of collective voice;
| what the union does and how it achieves it's goals are up to
| the members. There are many, many models you can follow, from
| union-shops to more insurance/mutual aid society models.
| eznzt wrote:
| Google wanted a leftist culture, there you have a cultist
| culture. May this serve as a word of warning to fangless
| executives all around the country.
| thundergolfer wrote:
| Who is the "Google" that you say wanted the leftist culture?
|
| Is it the shareholders? The majority of shareholder ownership
| in Google is held by wealthy non-employees, who probably didn't
| want a leftist culture.
|
| Is it the executives? Seeing as unionisation probably reduces
| their power and their pay, they probably didn't want it.
|
| Is it the rank-and-file engineers? These people tend to be left
| of centre, and the younger ones are likely quite socially
| progressive, but anti-capitalist? Not many. Seems wrong to
| generalise that they want a leftist culture.
| alacombe wrote:
| "Leftist culture" is the only way to make any kind of money
| right now in the US, so of course Google want a "leftist
| culture" there. Is the rest of the world, it might be
| different, of course (eg. China).
| eplanit wrote:
| I wish Google well on whatever it (legally) pursues to fight
| this. I see them as a company that has gone from great to now
| becoming mediocre, and whose employees are destroying it from
| within.
|
| Maybe those clever interview quizzes should be updated to
| identify and filter out political zealots.
| apta_ wrote:
| I know at least one person who left Google because it became
| too political, and this was several years ago. It's sad to see
| what's become of the company.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Good thing I'm using Google less and less, because unions turn
| everything they touch to shit.
| gverrilla wrote:
| very good news
| pnw_hazor wrote:
| Apparently this is a Members-only union. They are different than
| classic teamster/boilermaker/machinist unions most people think
| of.
|
| Unless the law or NLRB has recently changed its position,
| employers do not have to bargain with members-only unions. Though
| they can if they want.
|
| https://prospect.org/justice/labor-crossroads-defense-member...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members-only_unionism
| around_here wrote:
| One of the most common things I see among tech workers is that
| they think companies are "anti-union", which is a total lie. They
| _love_ unions, just not when workers make them. They call them
| "associations", "councils", "chambers of commerce", etc. They
| serve on each other's boards, they form cabals to limit employee
| pay, and they lobby the government to make it easier to get rid
| of you whenever they please.
|
| Corporations and the rich love socialism. They need it. It's
| socialism for them, brutal capitalism and rugged individualism
| for everyone else. The fools of tech listen to their words and
| ignore their actions.
| Dig1t wrote:
| I'm not at all against unions, I think the idea is good for some
| industries. I truly hate the idea of being FORCED to join one
| though. I've worked union jobs in the past in California, and the
| idea that I HAD to join an organization and pay them a portion of
| my minimum wage hourly pay drove me absolutely bonkers. This was
| on top of the fact that the union never gave me any benefits, the
| reps were impossible to get ahold of and didn't care at all even
| if you did get ahold of them. To me, it was a giant useless
| bureaucracy that I was forced to pay into.
|
| I hope software unions look and feel different than the
| experience that I had.
| prodtorok wrote:
| IMO this entire thread is missing a likely trajectory/implication
| here. This isn't a union formed in the industrial revolution.
| raiyu wrote:
| Any system that aggregates power can be used towards detrimental
| efforts. Unions aggregate power and as such are heavily dependent
| on their leadership.
|
| When there was no employment law in the US and you had children
| working, obviously change was necessary and so unions were able
| to provide worker protections that an individual couldn't
| establish for themselves since they had no power against the
| corporation.
|
| If you look at police unions in the US you can see how
| detrimental unions can be as well. They are focused on protecting
| their workers even when those same workers are the issue which
| leads to a very challenging environment around firing "poor"
| performers.
|
| Often times what is better is intelligent government regulation.
| Though that in and of itself is an oxymoron.
|
| Things like mandated health insurance, overtime pay, work hours,
| minimum wage, these are all protections that we need encoded in
| law, less so in unions.
|
| The other challenge with unions, is that while one can succeed it
| leaves everyone else that is outside of the union at other
| companies completely unprotected.
|
| At the same time, if you think of the largest union, it is all of
| the workers of a country. What if they joined together, to really
| lobby the government for massive change. Something that goes into
| law.
|
| Like minimum wage increases, and the like.
|
| The reality though is that any economic system is complex where
| pushing on one area creates an often unexpected result elsewhere.
|
| You would also need heavier investment in government agencies
| that are meant to police the enforcement of such policies and to
| ensure that they are truly operating separately from the
| industries they are supposed to be policing. The opposite of that
| is what happened with the FAA and Boeing recently.
| dogprez wrote:
| > The other challenge with unions, is that while one can
| succeed it leaves everyone else that is outside of the union at
| other companies completely unprotected.
|
| The 5 day 40 hour workweek was championed by the trade unions
| but everyone got the advantage of that eventually.
| karl11 wrote:
| Don't think we've ever seen Hollywood in the modern era without
| unions, so not sure how you can claim it's "undeniable" the
| industry is better off. We basically have no clue if it's better
| off or not.
|
| Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't have a
| marketplace of options as there is a single or just a few
| employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns, hospital
| staff, etc.). Unionizing at Google makes no sense, as there are
| thousands of tech companies hiring engineers in the valley --
| engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply
| leaving and working somewhere "better".
|
| The reality is that Google is an easy place to work relative to
| how much people get paid. People don't want to leave a cushy job
| for one where they would have to work harder for their money, so
| instead, they are trying other means to have their cake and eat
| it too.
| dv_dt wrote:
| We have seen glimpses of what a modern Hollywood equivalent
| could be without unions in the gaming industry
| dagmx wrote:
| Large swaths of film production work is non union btw. Union is
| the default for on set and pre production but it's not
| exclusively so. Post production is majority non union
| Moosdijk wrote:
| >>engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply
| leaving and working somewhere "better".
|
| This "if you don't like it here, go work somewhere else" kind
| of reasoning disproportionately balances the power towards the
| employer. Instead of fixing problems, it leads to removing
| those that are affected. This is exactly what unions are for.
| dls2016 wrote:
| I like that everyone sort of forgets about the time the big
| tech firms were caught in a wage-fixing cabal:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
| huffmsa wrote:
| The traitorous eight leaving Shockley because they didn't
| like their boss is foundational to the valley.
| consp wrote:
| At that, what is basically a startup, level it is possible
| but for a company the size of Google it would not put a
| dent into the system. Totally different power dynamics.
| the_other wrote:
| The idea that leaving equates to collective bargaining is
| false, and even if it had a ring of truth it would be
| ineffectual at FAANG companies.
|
| Leaving changes nothing, it just accelerates the bad behaviour
| because the obstacle to the bad behaviour removed itself. A
| single person, even a team of engineers, leaving a FAANG
| company will have near-zero impact on the behaviour,
| functioning or profitability of that company. The action will
| not change management or ownership's perspectives on anything.
| They'll simply hire someone else, and promote internally if
| they need too. Even when you have a celebrity engineer like Tim
| Brey leave Amazon, publicly explaining why, outright slamming
| some of their behaviour, nothing will change. Mozilla seems to
| think it can function exactly the same as it did before (in
| terms of mindset) having let go of 25% of its staff. In the UK
| we recently had several politicians leave their senior
| positions within government or their party over disagreements
| in policy... and nothing meaningful has changed.
|
| Unions are not just for protecting jobs, they're much more
| about staff having a voice, if not a seat, at the executive
| table. Unions can help influence senior decision-making. Most
| of that is about job protection, pay, quality of life issues
| because in blue-collar jobs those are the key issues. But in
| white-collar jobs a union can represent the opinion and aims of
| staff in a way that isn't obvious without them.
| prepend wrote:
| > Leaving changes nothing
|
| Leaving improves conditions for the worker and that's the
| biggest thing for me, the worker.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| The biggest thing for me, also the worker, is being able to
| negotiate against abuse in an industry that Eg. Uses h1b to
| abuse employees on the regular. These employees _cant_
| leave.
| bubbleRefuge wrote:
| I'd say thats one big advantage to unionization and the
| political leverage that it can bring. Not sure it helps
| in California where you have a blue state. Getting rid of
| the cheap exploitative labor that H1's bring in and
| restoring the H1's original design which was to bring in
| the best and the brightest or the most skilled.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Why can't H1B employees leave? Can't they go back to
| their countries?
| Larrikin wrote:
| Just because you aren't literally a slave doesn't mean
| you have to choose between two options you don't want
| instead of trying to get the third better option.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| It's hard to leave when your children have already made
| American friends, when they would suffer immensely going
| to a country they have no familiarity with. The
| disruption of money and emotional safety of moving to
| another country with no employment prospects is a horror
| I don't want anyone to live through.
| alextheparrot wrote:
| The entire post talks about effects on the company. If
| we're trying to be unreasonably obtuse, it doesn't change
| conditions for a worker either because a person not working
| is not a worker.
| prepend wrote:
| What I meant is that it does change conditions for the
| worker as they leave for better conditions. I think
| working in tech, it's been a luxury to line up a new job
| and go to that job with zero down time. I'm not
| suggesting people do brash stuff like walk out without
| new employment lined up.
|
| This is a huge change, the biggest I think, as I can
| change all of my conditions by finding a company that
| gives me what I want.
|
| I think to a lesser extent since I've frequently seen
| that smart people leaving for specific reasons changes
| company policy.
|
| I was just trying to show a simple contra to parent's
| comment saying that leaving changes nothing as that seems
| simply false to me.
| hammock wrote:
| >What I meant is that it does change conditions for the
| worker as they leave for....
|
| As they leave for, perhaps, a unionized job?
|
| I was with you on the parent comment, but then had a
| think about it and I agree above, someone who leaves the
| company is a non-worker for the purposes of this argument
| prepend wrote:
| I think it's important to consider that the plight of the
| worker is important both to the individual directly and
| to understand the motivations of employees.
|
| Thinking that benefit to employees isn't relevant because
| they don't exist for purposes of the argument will leave
| out many interesting possible solutions.
|
| I don't think the goal is to maximize for a single
| company as it's possible to maximize for the system that
| has both the company, other companies, and other workers.
| alextheparrot wrote:
| I suppose the contra seemed a bit hollow, as the bit you
| quoted has an implicit "in the company" attached based on
| the context of the post. It was less that your statement
| was strictly false and more "Well yes, but that isn't
| really addressing the actual topic".
| prepend wrote:
| I should have provided more thought in my response. I was
| trying to reframe that the actual topic shouldn't be so
| limited.
|
| But it's not reasonable for me to assume that readers
| would get that from my quip.
|
| I think that I try this to try to break out of the paths
| where we inappropriately limit the scope to the point we
| can be sound in designing a solution that fits our
| narrowed scope but missed the goal that we were trying to
| achieve. I think in this case that the assumption that
| the goal is to fix google leaves out the individual who
| has mixed duties to the organization and themself. I
| probably get too emotional when I frequently see
| discussions that try to box me into being part of the
| solution and I see this quite a bit in product design. I
| see discussions around products where a complaint is met
| with discussion around the need to provide a solution. So
| the discussion spirals around kind of assuming the only
| options for users are: 1) propose solutions, 2) keep
| using. But there are three options: 1) propose solutions,
| 2) keep using, 3) stop using. And assuming that all users
| operate with only the first two options makes it more
| likely to only design around those two.
| eropple wrote:
| Not a leading question, I promise: do you believe you don't
| own your externalities?
| prepend wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean. I've worked in management and
| staff roles and in both there's tons of externalities
| that I don't control, but maybe can influence.
| eropple wrote:
| By being there, and in this industry within rounding
| error of everyone has the choice to go find another job--
| you've already committed, personally, to responsibilities
| for some externalities. At Google, they may be
| considerable, and they may have large echoes.
|
| Personally, I would feel obligated to make right
| something I did that I thought wasn't good for the world
| at large.
|
| Relatedly, this is why I pick my employers (and, when
| consulting, my clients) very carefully.
| prepend wrote:
| Thanks. I think I feel similarly. I don't have direct
| control over externalities so I try to pick employers
| with as much consideration as I can.
|
| So I don't think I am responsible, but do feel guilt or
| pride based on organization actions. For a historical
| example, even if I'm not building the slave ships, I
| wouldn't want to work on building them. Depending on the
| particulars I would either try to change the firm to stop
| this practice, or leave the firm for another job and then
| use other legal actions to stop this practice.
| tehjoker wrote:
| If you want to imagine a non-unionized hollywood, imagine film
| makers being able to pay people in exposure for nearly
| everything.
| beerandt wrote:
| We've seen lots of exodus from Hollywood to states that are
| less union friendly, or at least that don't yet have a strong
| related union presence (yet).
|
| While there maybe isn't yet a definitive "Hollywood East" or
| "Hollywood South" etc yet, the desire to find/build an
| alternative to Hollywood proper seems clear.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Just as workers rights for employees at manufacturing plants
| improve over time, so will these secondary Hollywoods.
|
| https://deadline.com/2020/08/vancouver-production-to-
| restart...
|
| https://deadline.com/2020/11/election-2020-entertainment-
| ind...
|
| And as always, there's an HBO's _Silicon Valley_ for
| everything:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDzTKI9a78k
| lawwantsin17 wrote:
| We have history books. Scab.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply
| leaving and working somewhere "better"."_
|
| That's only collective bargaining if a lot of them leave en
| masse (ie. collectively), and for the same issue(s). To do that
| effectively they'd need to organize, coordinate their efforts,
| and speak as one voice: in other words, they'd need to
| unionize.
|
| Leaving one at a time, for different issues is not collective
| bargaining, it's individual bargaining, so not at all
| comparable to a union.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > Unionizing at Google makes no sense, as there are thousands
| of tech companies hiring engineers in the valley -- engineers
| can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply leaving and
| working somewhere "better".
|
| Wouldn't Google workers collectively bargaining with Google
| using the threat of leaving to work at another tech company be,
| like, a union?
| cogman10 wrote:
| I agree with you to a point.
|
| I'd just say that there are more reasons to unionize than just
| local monopolies. You unionize whenever there's a major
| disparity between cooperate profits and worker benefits. You
| unionize when work conditions are bad and management doesn't
| care. You unionize when you feel you are being treated
| unfairly.
|
| For example, construction companies are often places where
| there's both lots of work available and union outfits doing a
| lot of good.
| kenjackson wrote:
| > engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply
| leaving and working somewhere "better".
|
| To do this as a group you will still benefit from an
| organization to manage it. Its a lot more effective to say,
| "Stop doing this or we 1500 engineers are all leaving on Feb 1"
| versus a bunch of engineers seemingly random quitting (although
| for similar reasons).
| mkr-hn wrote:
| They did a strike to get paid for streaming back when most
| people thought it wouldn't go anywhere. I think the industry is
| better off with them getting paid for what is becoming the
| default way to watch stuff.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| You have merely to look at the animators on Disney's films
| prior to unionization.
|
| I find the analogy very close to the stories I hear about
| coders in the game industry.
|
| Google unionizing might sound odd to your ears, Electronics
| Arts programmers unionizing sounds like something that should
| have happened a decade ago.
| josefx wrote:
| > as there are thousands of tech companies hiring engineers in
| the valley -- engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google
| by simply leaving and working somewhere "better".
|
| And we have court cases documenting that Google, Apple, etc.
| will do their worst to collectively reduce job mobility and
| artificially reduce wages. You can't use a better paying
| position at Apple to bargain for better wages at Google because
| they (and dozens others) agreed not to hire each others
| workers.
| bumby wrote:
| > _Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn 't
| have a marketplace of options... engineers can "collectively
| bargain" with Google by simply leaving and working somewhere
| "better"._
|
| I don't know that you've put forth a convincing argument here.
| There is no defining union industry in principle, only in past
| embodiment. The intent of a union is to balance the leverage of
| workers compared to management via collective bargaining. So a
| union is valid anywhere there is a real or perceived imbalance
| of leverage.
|
| Claiming one can go get a job anywhere else only balances the
| leverage when certain assumptions are met (e.g., symmetry of
| information, no conspiracies to suppress wages or prevent
| hiring etc.) Considering the tech industry hasn't always met
| these assumptions, I don't know that your claim proves true
| maeln wrote:
| I have to say, this is a really American view of unions. Here
| in Europe, I know a lot of people who love their company and
| are still part of an union.
|
| First of, yeah, you could "just go" if you don't like what the
| company is offering. But it is not a reality for a lot of
| people, even in the tech industry. Leaving your job is not that
| easy. And it encourage a race to the bottom. With no union to
| negotiate, the negotiation will always be unbalanced in the
| favour of the employee since you are negotiating as an
| individual vs. a organization. Its way, way easier for company
| to scare you and keep wage low when their is no union to back
| you up.
|
| Also, union can help you when you have a manager or any higher-
| up that makes your work life hard. I know a lot of company who
| try to sweep complain under the rug for one reason or another.
| But when the union get involved, they just can't, they have to
| deal with it.
|
| Finally, employee are stake holder in a company. A lot feel
| involved and responsible in the company direction and future.
| You can't just excluded them because they are not shareholder.
| I mean, you can, but that will lead to a strong feeling of
| alienation. Union help with that, and I know some people who
| are part of a union just for this: They love their job and the
| company they work for, so they want to have a say in where the
| company is going.
| baq wrote:
| Unionizing doesn't make sense is a great sentence for an HR
| person to speak. In truth, it's about as real as 'HR doesn't
| make sense'. Unions are supposed to be a counterweight for HR
| in that they should care about employees in the same way HR
| cares about the company.
| yibg wrote:
| Also, unions are about balance of power. Giving more bargaining
| power (collectively) to people that otherwise don't have much
| bargaining power.
|
| Most people in tech, and especially so at places like google
| don't feel like they have low bargaining power. So I think the
| perception is, not only is there not much to be gained by
| unionizing, there is potentially more to lose by giving up
| individual bargaining power to the union. So basically losing
| autonomy and control for some unknown and fuzzy benefit.
| inoop wrote:
| > engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply
| leaving and working somewhere "better"
|
| While I generally agree with the sentiment of your comment, I
| would like to point out that the above is only true for green
| card holders. There are a _lot_ of H1B /L1B workers stuck at
| bad teams with high amounts of pressure/stress and incompetent
| or downright abusive managers.
|
| For them, leaving the company isn't an option because it means
| leaving the country and leaving a life-changing amount of money
| on the table and denying their children the advantage of
| growing up in the US.
|
| You might argue they can switch teams, which is technically
| true, but this can complicate and delay the green card process,
| and vindictive managers often smear engineers with HR because
| people bailing on them makes them look bad. At Amazon for
| example, particularly bad managers will PIP an engineer to
| block them from transferring teams.
|
| So while in general engineers are treated well and can choose
| where they want to work, I think we should also show some
| solidarity with our friends who don't have the same options
| that we do.
| alchemism wrote:
| The best way to respond to a frivolous PIP as an employee is
| a frivolous harassment claim against the manager, sexual or
| otherwise.
| zanmat0 wrote:
| Encouraging fraud, nice.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Also the previous commentator doesn't understand what
| collective means here.
| irateswami wrote:
| Ugh, we really need to reform the H1B. It's basically
| indentured servitude and helps perpetuate shitty behavior in
| our industry.
| nooyurrsdey wrote:
| > Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't
| have a marketplace of options as there is a single or just a
| few employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns,
| hospital staff, etc.)
|
| Unions serve a purpose of being able to collectively bargain,
| regardles off how many "options" there are.
|
| Employers and corporations always have bargaining power and are
| basically collective establishments themselves. Individuals
| rarely have any negotiating power for better conditions, wages,
| treatment, etc...
| wilde wrote:
| Sure we can. Hollywood without unions = gamedev. Looks pretty
| shitty to me.
| newacct583 wrote:
| > engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply
| leaving and working somewhere "better".
|
| That is _literally_ the opposite of what "collective" means.
| You seem to be trying to argue against unionization by circular
| logic, by claiming that it doesn't work because market forces
| do the same thing because unionization isn't necessary.
|
| I mean, it's easy to do that in the case of FAANG employers who
| already pay very high salaries. But they make outrageous
| profits too. What's the argument that the already-highly-paid
| engineers shouldn't get a bigger share?
| appleflaxen wrote:
| You list teachers, who in my opinion are the poster children of
| how problematic unions are.
|
| And there are some _phenomenal_ teachers out there. There are
| teachers that change lives profoundly. But they don 't need the
| unions, and the terrible teachers who should be fired /are/
| protected. It's really messed up, most people have first-hand
| experience with it, and they are a corrosive factor in the end.
| door99 wrote:
| > You list teachers, who in my opinion are the poster
| children of how problematic unions are.
|
| Teachers unions are extremely important. They are
| "problematic" only in the sense that they are one of the few
| unions that have genuinely strong bargaining power these
| days.
| jonahrd wrote:
| I think it's pretty hard to claim that the reason there are
| bad teachers is because it's hard to fire them because
| they're unionized.
|
| There are a lot of potential reasons:
|
| - The pay is crap
|
| - The "prestige" is crap
|
| - The barrier to entry is low
|
| In Finland, for example, there are excellent teachers because
| the profession is treated as on par with doctors. I don't
| think it's fair to blame unions for this difference in
| culture.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Teacher pay in the US is pretty good, if you take into
| account hours actually worked and benefits, especially very
| generous retirement ones.
| acdha wrote:
| Look for data on this and you'll learn the opposite.
| Teaching requires a master's degree in most cases but in
| many states that's only getting you pay in the $40-50k
| range (yes, housing is cheaper in the boonies. No, cars,
| consumer goods, food, medications, etc. are not.)
|
| A popular propaganda claim is that teachers work fewer
| hours based on the hope that reader doesn't know teaching
| includes more than direct instructional time. Summer
| breaks are shorter now and have things like mandatory
| training for required professional development, and the
| few weeks most teachers have off are not enough to make
| up for the long hours during the school year and
| inability to take time off when school is in session.
| rhexs wrote:
| Three months off is not a "few weeks". Good lord. What
| school district are you referencing where teachers are
| forced to work every day during the summer?
|
| Yes, they don't get paid for not working, but can usually
| have their employer stretch the 9 month salary to cover
| all 12.
|
| There are a lot of reasons I wouldn't want to be a modern
| American teacher, but the time-off schedule is not one of
| them.
| acdha wrote:
| Note that I never claimed teachers were forced to work
| every day of the summer. I said "a few weeks" because for
| the teachers I know scheduling a vacation ends up being a
| couple of weeks where they have a contiguous free stretch
| between the end of school in June (usually a week after
| students), staff meetings and trainings, professional
| development, and planning for the school year which
| begins in August. No, they aren't working every day of
| that period but it's nowhere near as generous as people
| tend to describe it sounding like June 1st to September
| 1st.
| smabie wrote:
| This is anecdotal evidence, but my mom was a teacher and
| she was getting paid 85k, had no masters, didn't work at
| all during the summer, and didn't work at home at all (<8
| hour work day).
| ncphil wrote:
| This isn't your mom's educational labor market. The stats
| are there to support most assertions in the above reply.
| They're just inconveniently scattered across the states
| and not all electronically accessible. I wonder whose
| interests that serves? When I taught in inner city
| Paterson back in the mid-90s most teachers worked at
| least two jobs but still spent many extra hours a week
| outside normal school time on phone conferences with
| parents, curriculum development and grading tests/papers,
| because they all had a full load of classes with 35+
| students each. Things weren't much easier down here in NC
| two decades later where my own kids were in school (our
| district has a year-round calendar -- so no summers off
| for teachers). The master's requirement exists in NY, but
| practically discouraged in other places because school
| districts didn't want to pay the differential. Sure, none
| of this approaches the often 24x7x365 experience of many
| sysadmins and devs (my own tech experience for over 20
| years), but it's also far from the bankers' hours myth
| that's been pushed since at least the 80s.
| acdha wrote:
| More power to her -- that sounds a lot better than any of
| the teachers I know.
|
| For me, the biggest push here is that we've had a
| generation or so of our society collectively telling
| everyone that the future for good jobs is STEM, STEM,
| STEM or maybe STEM. If we actually believe that, we
| should be paying and treating teachers well because we
| are targeting education-intensive subjects _and_ because
| we need to hire teachers who have an understanding of
| subjects which pay well. Teaching shop was a great job
| option for a contractor who was getting older and needed
| the benefits but that dynamic doesn 't apply to someone
| who can teach most STEM subjects can often get comparable
| benefits and likely better pay, and enjoying teaching
| only goes so far to compensate the various drawbacks.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > Look for data on this and you'll learn the opposite.
|
| I looked at the data and stand by my assessment.
|
| > Teaching requires a master's degree in most cases
|
| It does not. Most teachers get masters degree because pay
| schedule pays extra for master degree holders. Master
| degrees are less prevalent in private schools, because
| private schools are not typically so dumb to have rigid
| pay schedules that pay extra for degrees, regardless of
| whether these degrees are actually useful.
|
| > that's only getting you pay in the $40-50k range
|
| That's already above median wage. It's slightly below
| median wage of all workers with a university degree, but
| once you take into account hours actually worked and non-
| wage benefits, this is actually significantly above
| average pay of workers with university degrees.
|
| > A popular propaganda claim is that teachers work fewer
| hours based on the hope that reader doesn't know teaching
| includes more than direct instructional time.
|
| A popular propaganda claim is also that non-instructional
| time is a lot. It might be for _some_ teachers,
| especially younger ones fresh into their careers who need
| more time to prepare for their classes. The non-
| instructional work sometimes is also pretty concentrated,
| making some weeks very busy and requiring hard work in
| those. However, most weeks are not busy, and most
| teachers do not spend more than a handful of hours each
| week on non-teaching work.
| Aunche wrote:
| Generally, states requiring masters degrees pay more than
| $40-50k a year. Teaching is a rewarding profession, so
| naturally there will be a lot of teachers willing to
| work, which depresses wages. Regardless, teachers get
| paid well above medium incomes regardless of where they
| live.
|
| I agree that teachers should be paid more, particularly
| newer ones, but I blame the unions for this. So much
| money gets funneled into pensions, which only a small
| fraction of teachers ever get.
| wang_li wrote:
| Your first two reasons are not valid reasons for being a
| bad employee. Both are knowable before taking the job. If
| you take a job knowing the pay is bad and you justify being
| a bad employee because the pay is bad, you're a shitty
| person.
|
| The third reason I don't think is true. Teaching is in the
| class of occupations that require government certification.
| confidantlake wrote:
| It isn't about the employee choosing to do a shitty job
| because the pay is low. It is about the super talented,
| smart, ambitious person never going into the field in the
| first place because the pay is shitty.
| wang_li wrote:
| I'd say that super talented, smart, and ambitious
| describe a finer gradation of employee than the simple
| good/bad in the earlier comments. It's just my opinion,
| but, as in most occupations, you don't have to be the
| cream of the crop to be a good employee.
| e40 wrote:
| This is the elephant in the room. Unions make it much harder
| to fire low performers. I think they have great benefits, but
| this terrible side effect.
|
| For another example look at police unions.
| rzz3 wrote:
| Public unions are a bad idea in general. The citizens
| collectively employ the government, and that government
| shouldn't have a right to organize against the people whom
| it serves.
|
| So in my opinion, these two examples of toxic public unions
| shouldn't be applied to private unions.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I agree. I'm indifferent to private sector unions. None
| of my business if it isn't my workplace. But public
| sector unions are a path to corruption. Both major
| parties exploit these so I can't blame a single party
| here either.
|
| What better way to consolidate power than by aligning
| with a public service union and "bargain" with them while
| being incentivized to grow membership in that union to
| further consolidate power.
|
| If anything I'd support public sector unions if members
| were not allowed to vote for offices that represent their
| "management" or control their budgets.
|
| Could you imagine a private sector union appointing the
| management of the company they negotiate with?
| door99 wrote:
| > Could you imagine a private sector union appointing the
| management of the company they negotiate with?
|
| Yes that would be fantastic.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >Both major parties exploit these so I can't blame a
| single party here either.
|
| Republicans in Wisconsin abolished public unions back in
| 2011 (though admittedly they had exemptions for police
| and firefighters) and there was nationwide outrage from
| the left about it. There have been recent calls from the
| left to abolish police unions but those seem almost
| exclusively about police unions' ability to protect
| corrupt/brutal/racist cops and not about their ability to
| bilk taxpayers.
|
| So while it's not completely clearcut, the right has a
| much better record for opposing public unions than the
| left.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Republicans have only opposed the unions that don't
| support them. Police unions, like the ones in Wisconsin,
| supported Gov. Walker so he conveniently didn't break
| them. That's corrupt in my opinion and unprincipled.
|
| You have begun to see labor movements distance themselves
| from police unions. I'd expect at some point it will be
| politically acceptable for Democrats in places like
| Wisconsin to strike back at them, which I'd support. So
| long as the other unions in the public sector are broken
| too.
|
| No public sector should be able to unionize. If these
| groups want to lobby then fine. Lobbying, although
| corrupt in many ways, does not beholden tax payers to
| corrupt contracts.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Unions in many places explicitly have board seats. No
| need to imagine it. Of course a board seat is not voting
| control over management.
| datavirtue wrote:
| The barrier to removal creates low performers. I worked in
| education for years and saw first hand how lazy and shitty
| grown adults can be (professors). However, I would never
| condone eliminating unions. The faculty need a bastion
| against those who control the money ("the
| administration")--think about the separation of powers
| between the legislative and executive branches. Otherwise
| you would never have the few professors that make the whole
| system worth it. We need to strengthen unions and make sure
| the unions' and management are aligned on the same
| objective. This takes a rational and inclusive approach by
| both sides. In my experience if either side is mainly
| concerned with their own silo the whole thing gets very
| toxic. Unionized employees are not the enemy and neither
| are management.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| No actually what unions do is make sure that any "firing"
| is done fairly and with the law and not used to harass or
| discriminate.
| mikelward wrote:
| The best teachers have to fight to get paid what they are
| worth.
|
| The best teachers have to fight for the resources they need
| to do their job well.
|
| Most teachers are being asked to do unreasonable and unsafe
| things during COVID.
| JediWing wrote:
| The rubber room story that is trotted out all the time is the
| exception, not the rule.
|
| The very existence of teachers unions has probably kept tens
| or even hundreds of thousands of people from being out of
| work without healthcare during a global pandemic.
|
| In my experience, having a teacher as a spouse, discipline of
| even union employees is not rare when warranted.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| This is complicated, because public schools (and police
| departments, mentioned by another replier) are not for-profit
| entities. I don't think we can treat public employee unions
| and private employee unions the same.
|
| Public schools, police departments, etc., are usually
| "political" entities, run by elected officials such as school
| boards and city councils. I would say there's no guarantee
| whatsoever in these cases that the leadership of those
| entities are even interested in compensating/promoting the
| "top performers" among teachers, or police. There's no direct
| financial incentive. The "outcomes" of a school -- student
| education -- don't provide much of a feedback mechanism to
| the financial performance or governance of the school.
| Likewise with police departments, etc. If anything, poor
| performance by these public entities may lead to calls for
| increased funding, standing the incentives on their heads.
|
| Part of the reason for public employee unions is to protect
| the members specifically from _political_ interference. The
| alternative is not necessarily "merit" based compensation
| but rather political favoritism and retribution.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Part of the reason for public employee unions is to
| protect the members specifically from political
| interference. The alternative is not necessarily "merit"
| based compensation but rather political favoritism and
| retribution.
|
| And yet all forms of public sector employment, regardless
| of union status, are treated as staffing agencies who's
| hiring can be manipulated by those who traditionally hold
| the power of political interference. The best way to step
| up your career as a teacher, cop or other bureaucrat is to
| know a guy who knows a guy who's owed a favor by a
| politician who can write a recommendation on your behalf to
| an open position that you want to step up to. This is how
| people move from line level positions to administrative
| positions. (And before anyone says "but the police", they
| are somewhat insulated because they have strict traditions
| in their industry that have sway over career advancement.)
|
| If the purpose of unions is to insulate the labor pool from
| political meddling then they have done an incredibly poor
| job at it.
|
| I'm much more inclined to believe that the purpose of
| unions is to extract maximum concessions from the
| employer(s) for the benefit of the people they control
| while ignoring any externalities. In settings where labor
| is interchangeable and employed privately the benefits are
| clear and the downsides are very limited. But when you
| start talking about the police and teachers unions circling
| the wagons to protect people who behave badly while
| simultaneously attempting to extract maximum money from
| society it becomes much less clear whether the unions in
| question are an overall good thing. It's one thing for the
| union to try and extract more concessions from a
| corporation that would otherwise pocket the money and
| supposedly has competition to keep them from just passing
| on the cost without pressure to reduce margins. It's a
| whole different ethical ballgame when society will be
| footing the bill and there is no competition to keep
| downward pressure on costs.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > I'm much more inclined to believe that the purpose of
| unions is to extract maximum concessions from the
| employer(s) for the benefit of the people they control
| while ignoring any externalities.
|
| I agree that this is one purpose of unions. I just
| disagree that it's the only purpose. Unions have multiple
| purposes, and it's a common misconception that there's
| only one specific type of benefit to them. This is why I
| intentionally phrased my comment with "Part of the reason
| for public employee unions is..."
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| With regard to police officers, I would say that it's not
| _just_ the police unions that circle the wagons and
| protect them. The courts have been _extremely_ reluctant
| to charge or convict police officers with crimes for acts
| in the line of duty. Also, there 's widespread support
| for the police in the general public, "blue lives
| matter", etc. I would suggest that police unions have
| only been allowed to wield they power they do because
| there's outside support in the general public for
| protecting police officers. Even the politicians who are
| anti-union tend to exempt police unions from their wrath,
| because those politicians tend to also be "law and order"
| types.
| dantheman wrote:
| So politicians cave to large organized groups who can
| cause them problems and effect their ability to be
| elected?
|
| How is that a surprise, of course politicians give public
| sector unions what they want -- they hold the cards, a
| huge voting block and cause problems. Most of the
| tradeoffs are passed down the line so the politician
| doesn't care either.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > So politicians cave to large organized groups who can
| cause them problems and effect their ability to be
| elected?
|
| That's not what I said? I said the general public (who
| are unorganized) have a great deal of deference for
| police officers, and the power of police unions is merely
| a consequence of the public's deference to police.
|
| > How is that a surprise, of course politicians give
| public sector unions what they want -- they hold the
| cards, a huge voting block and cause problems.
|
| It's not a huge voting block. Union membership is much
| lower now than it was, say, 50 years ago. Moreover,
| politicians don't give public sector unions what they
| want. Here in Wisconsin, the state legislature stripped
| public employee unions of collective bargaining rights.
| There were massive protests at the state capitol about
| this, but in the end it didn't matter. Afterward there
| was recall campaign and election against the Governor,
| but the Governor won the recall election.
|
| It feels to me like many people still have a 1960s
| conception of labor unions and their power, but
| empirically speaking, labor unions have been on the
| decline for decades, perhaps starting with the Reagan
| years. Now is not the Jimmy Hoffa era anymore.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > Part of the reason for public employee unions is to
| protect the members specifically from political
| interference.
|
| That's one side of the coin. The other side is to be a
| large enough entity to influence elections and then
| "negotiate" with those you helped get elected. Is it any
| wonder that states with large public service unions are in
| debt (even with high taxes) and have unsustainable pension
| obligations?
|
| I'm not blaming a party here either. Democrats and
| Republicans tend to align with teachers and police
| respectively here and it creates the same problem.
|
| It's why public employees should never be allowed to
| unionize. FDR himself expressed this of all people. It's an
| inevitable path to corruption. We can't expect a reasonable
| "collective bargaining" when both sides of the negotiations
| are in bed.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > The other side is to be a large enough entity to
| influence elections and then "negotiate" with those you
| helped get elected.
|
| That's the nature of politics. Businesses and business
| leaders lobby politicians and donate to their political
| campaigns too. It's strange to single out unions when
| there are so many different kinds of political interest
| groups, often with much more money than unions.
|
| Public employee unions are bad, but the Tavern League,
| for example (I'm from Wisconsin), is ok? The National
| Rifle Association is ok? The National Landlord
| Association? Businesses and interest groups of every kind
| are donating money to the politicians who will directly
| regulate them. Why specifically exclude public employees
| from that?
| nemo44x wrote:
| Corruption comes in many forms, yes. But a private sector
| union that can elect gives the people they elect
| incentive to grow the union membership and therefore
| consolidate power. You can't elect the person you're
| going to negotiate with. It's pure corruption and a major
| conflict of interest.
|
| Private money has major issues too but it doesn't have a
| direct influence on votes. A company can lobby all day
| and give money and that might get you more ads. But
| aligning with a union gets you votes and will continue
| to.
|
| Police unions do this with Republicans as Teachers do
| with Democrats.
| SerLava wrote:
| Unions are for every single industry.
| boomlinde wrote:
| _> engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply
| leaving and working somewhere "better"._
|
| I.e. not collectively bargaining, instead hoping that enough
| other people will individually decide put their livelihood on
| the line to give employers the impression that things should
| change up, after which they will not be able to enjoy the
| changes because they switched job (which can be a pain in the
| ass regardless of opportunities).
|
| _> The reality is that Google is an easy place to work
| relative to how much people get paid. People don 't want to
| leave a cushy job for one where they would have to work harder
| for their money, so instead, they are trying other means to
| have their cake and eat it too._
|
| The relationship between an employer and employee is naturally
| adversarial in that there's a fundamental conflict between
| their interests. As an employee, I want to be paid as much as
| possible for my work (indeed as little work as possible), and I
| want it to be as pleasant as possible. The employer on the
| other hand will want me to do as much work as possible at as
| little cost as possible. Of course I want to provide value to
| my employer, and my employer wants to provide value to me, but
| that's because we both have my employment as a bargaining chip.
| That's my only chip, but it's only one of Google's ~100000.
|
| In those terms, if you can approach having the cake and eating
| it, why not? Why should only my employer organize and use their
| massive resources to achieve their goals to the greatest extent
| possible, while workers should willfully stay disorganized and
| never utilize their collective influence like a corporation
| will? Because having two cakes is bad? There's certainly more
| than enough cake to go around in FAANG.
| gandutraveler wrote:
| All unions end up being political. The elected union leaders
| are voted and the democratic process compels the leaders take
| decision that helps them stay in power. This is what causes
| the problem where you have elected union leader whose values
| don't align with helping companies bottom line. This will be
| the slow death of Google as the company we know. Can't wait
| to see right wing and left wing groups forming within Google.
| maya24 wrote:
| Slow death of Google as the company we know it today is not
| a bad thing.
| dls2016 wrote:
| > All unions end up being political.
|
| You say this like it's a bad thing. Instead, we've just
| been conditioned as "professional" employees to not talk
| politics in the one place where we have a modicum of
| control over how resources are allocated in society.
| boomlinde wrote:
| The organization of people around common goals and trying
| to define those goals is inherently political.
| Organizations without politics are like unicorns without
| horns, whether they're nation states, corporations or trade
| unions. Unions come with all that's good and bad about
| that.
|
| I don't believe that you can argue in good faith that
| unions will somehow be the first to introduce political
| schisms within Google.
| 14 wrote:
| Have you ever been part of a union your comment makes me doubt
| it?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I work at Google, and when I started, I thought the idea of
| unionizing there is ridiculous.
|
| They already have a very well defined leveling system. The
| promotion and hiring system - people hate - but it is as un-
| nepotistic as possible and (I think) fairer than pretty much
| anywhere else.
|
| The compensation is already higher than basically everywhere -
| as you mentioned - ESPECIALLY considering expectations for your
| work.
|
| And, sure, I think no one in America gets enough time off. We
| could maybe squeeze out 5 weeks of PTO for all employees.
|
| Originally, I thought, is that worth unionizing for? I didn't
| think so.
|
| HOWEVER, Googlers have since convinced me that this is more
| about employees having a voice in corporate decisions than
| compensation. For example (and I don't really agree with this)
| - most Googlers are VERY much against Google working with the
| DoD. They want to be able to use unions to block that. Others
| want to use unions to force Google to be more transparent about
| what it's doing with data and so on. Others want a better way
| for employees to speak up when we do things that seem illegal
| (breaking GDPR rules) or extremely unethical (hypnotizing
| babies on YouTube for ad-money). Currently, as with most
| companies, Google is a company that really cares only about
| maximizing shareholder value. Most Googlers were hired when the
| Google slogan was "Do no evil" and they really took that to
| heart. And for a long time, that WAS true. Now, a lot of them
| (and current employees) feel differently. And they think unions
| can bring "Do no evil" back to our main corporate guideline.
|
| I'm not sure I'm convinced this is worth it or possible, but
| (to me) it's DEFINITELY more convincing than the compensation /
| working conditions argument.
|
| If we unionizing and employees get a stronger corporate voice
| AND 5+ weeks PTO, I'll be very happy. But it seems like a pipe
| dream to me.
| [deleted]
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _employees having a voice in corporate decisions than
| compensation_ "
|
| Should your waiter, your dentist, your auto mechanic, your
| daycare worker, your landscaper, etc. have a say in your
| decisions? They're your employees, albeit temporarily, so why
| not?
|
| The shareholders are the owners of the company, not
| employees. The right to set the direction of the company
| belongs to its owners. The profits belong its owners, just as
| your paycheck and what to do with it belongs solely to you.
|
| (As an aside on shareholders and compensation, considering
| how many FAANG people have huge chunks of their compensation
| in stock, people are well aware unionizing at a FAANG is
| basically people attempting to pick their own pockets since
| increasing employee compensation (themselves) is taken from
| shareholders (themselves).)
| [deleted]
| kilotaras wrote:
| > people attempting to pick their own pockets since
| increasing employee compensation (themselves) is taken from
| shareholders (themselves)
|
| Unless employees make up 100% of the shareholders that is
| trivially not true.
| thu2111 wrote:
| Yes, exactly. There is no "workers rights" argument for a
| union at Google.
|
| It is purely a hard-left power grab, just like at Kickstarter
| when they unionised for the pure, noble purpose of forcing
| their employer to allow fundraisers that were threatening
| violence against conservatives (and thus had been taken down
| as a ToS violation).
|
| As a former Googler myself (not for quite some years), I see
| this as the inevitable end result of always kowtowing and
| giving in to ever more radical left extremism. It started
| with nice but trivial sounding language about how there
| should be more women in tech, and it ends with hiring endless
| full time activists like Timnit Gebru.
|
| If Google is ever to regain its former glory, it needs a
| serious purge. There won't be one: instead I suspect it will
| become a cautionary tale spoken about quietly throughout the
| world, for many decades to come. The lesson drawn will be:
| don't hire SJWs or else you might end up like Google did,
| with managers being deposed by a unionised mob demanding
| endless and ever-spiralling purity warns.
| adamsea wrote:
| > Don't think we've ever seen Hollywood in the modern era
| without unions, so not sure how you can claim it's "undeniable"
| the industry is better off. We basically have no clue if it's
| better off or not.
|
| Um it's called looking at the past? Making reasonable
| inferences?
| itake wrote:
| Just wondering but what companies are comparable to google to
| work at (with similar pay and culture)?
|
| I can only think of a handful that pay as well and even less if
| you consider corporate mission and culture.
| karl11 wrote:
| Exactly - people don't want to sacrifice their paycheck for
| their principles, so instead they are forming a union so they
| can try and change the company and have it both ways.
| avianlyric wrote:
| > so instead they are forming a union so they can try and
| change the company and have it both ways.
|
| Is this a bad thing?
| ddingus wrote:
| Nope.
| Odoia wrote:
| > Don't think we've ever seen Hollywood in the modern era
| without unions, so not sure how you can claim it's "undeniable"
| the industry is better off. We basically have no clue if it's
| better off or not.
|
| > Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't
| have a marketplace of options as there is a single or just a
| few employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns,
| hospital staff, etc.).
|
| Unions are for all workers in all industries and sectors.
| Unions protect workers rights through collective action and
| ensure the work force isn't marginalized, mismanaged or abused.
|
| A worker has a right to a voice. Unions are the body of that
| voice.
| avianlyric wrote:
| > People don't want to leave a cushy job for one where they
| would have to work harder for their money, so instead, they are
| trying other means to have their cake and eat it too.
|
| You're saying this like it's a bad thing. Why shouldn't
| employees expect, and get, better working conditions?
|
| > engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply
| leaving and working somewhere "better"
|
| How is individuals leaving "collectively bargain", it's the
| complete opposite, it's individual bargaining, with all the
| perils that entails.
|
| > Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't
| have a marketplace of options as there is a single or just a
| few employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns,
| hospital staff, etc.).
|
| This is just a mis-conception, look at Germany where every
| industry has unions, regardless of size, and unions has a say
| in how companies are run, and what direction they head in. They
| make sure that shareholders and employees get input into the
| highest levels of leadership, ensuring that shareholders can't
| force decisions that benefit shareholders at the detriment of
| employees.
|
| Finally Google looks like the perfect place for a union. Any
| company that rewards senior leadership for sexual harassment
| clearly doesn't consider it's employees important, and those
| employees should absolutely make it clear who generates most of
| the value in a company, and ensure they're treated fairly.
| tempuser189 wrote:
| > Why shouldn't employees expect, and get, better working
| conditions?
|
| have their cake and eat it too is absolutely correct. And the
| reason why we want to keep it the way it has been, is that
| the status quo productivity maximization is what has resulted
| in our current high pay and quality of life.
|
| > individuals leaving "collectively bargain", it's the
| complete opposite, it's individual bargaining, with all the
| perils that entails.
|
| The benefit of market rate is that it's fundamentally
| sustainable, and fair. When businesses collectively bargain,
| we call them "cartels"
|
| >look at Germany where every industry has unions, regardless
| of size, and unions has a say in how companies are run, and
| what direction they head in. They make sure that shareholders
| and employees get input into the highest levels of
| leadership, ensuring that shareholders can't force decisions
| that benefit shareholders at the detriment of employees.
|
| Because shareholder need to make decisions to improve
| shareholder value even if it means it's going to suck for
| employees. That's an important part of the system. You need
| to let go of deadbeats. Go ahead look at Germany. All their
| companies are very old. There's no room for startups. The
| only halfway relevant company they've produced in decades was
| a complete fraud. If the USA was like that, Google wouldn't
| even exist.
|
| Shareholders provide real value. For the most part from the
| fact that the business wouldn't even exist without them. How
| much they provide is supposed to be determined by the cost to
| replace them, the shareholders, by starting a new company and
| competing with the old one.
|
| > employees should absolutely make it clear who generates
| most of the value in a company,
|
| This would be hilarious. Only a tiny fraction of Google
| employees work on a part of the business that actually makes
| money.
|
| Most of the value google generates comes from their monopoly
| on search, not from workers. It would be trivially easy for
| google to crush the unionization efforts, sack more than half
| their employees, and increase theor profits.
| grogenaut wrote:
| Honest question: how do unions help with sexual harassment?
| The me too movement seemed much more focused on hollywood.
| Unions didn't seem to stop Weinstein.
| enriquec wrote:
| Not to mention the state of police unions
| karl11 wrote:
| Employees can ask for better, but when you already work at
| the company that pays and treats their employees like Google,
| I'm not sure what more you are entitled to. It seems clear to
| me that these are people who are unwilling to sacrifice some
| of the money they earn to follow their ideals and principles,
| so they are trying this instead.
|
| There are very few perils of leaving Google - a top tier
| company in an industry that is continuously struggling to
| hire enough people. If you are an engineer at Google and
| can't get a job somewhere else, I don't know what to tell
| you.
|
| Comparing Germany to USA is pointless, very different
| government, history, culture, business climate, etc.
| parasubvert wrote:
| Seems pretty straightforward. Sometimes you fight for
| reform inside a system instead of leaving it. This is how
| those inside gain leverage.
| adamsea wrote:
| > I'm not sure what more you are entitled to.
|
| Entitled? Who's talking about _entitled_? I thought we were
| talking about _negotiation_ and _leverage_ , since, you
| know, corporations are all about _money_ and _profit_.
|
| Is there some theoretical upper limit on what employees are
| _entitled_ to?
| mcot2 wrote:
| It clearly states in the article they are not looking for
| better pay for fulltime staff. The things mentioned are the
| contractors/vendors, huge severence payments for sexual
| harrasement and unethical government contracts.
| Ragnarork wrote:
| > It seems clear to me that these are people who are
| unwilling to sacrifice some of the money they earn to
| follow their ideals and principles, so they are trying this
| instead.
|
| So you missed the part of the article that explained they
| will commit a portion of their salary to fund the union?
|
| They are working for a company known to hire union-busters,
| fire employees trying to unionize or point out issues, and
| you want to argue that this is the safe way to try to
| follow their ideals and principles? This doesn't make much
| sense.
| alistairSH wrote:
| * but when you already work at the company that pays and
| treats their employees like Google*
|
| Oh how quickly we forget. It wasn't all that long ago that
| Google was involved in a massive wage fixing scandal (along
| with darn near every other major player in the "big tech").
| alisonkisk wrote:
| There was no wage fixing. This was a non recruiting
| agreement that had an imputed effect of reducing wages.
| ddingus wrote:
| You mean an act of agency resulted in control over wages?
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > It seems clear to me that these are people who are
| unwilling to sacrifice some of the money they earn to
| follow their ideals and principles, so they are trying this
| instead.
|
| This phrasing is disingenuous. If you don't like what's
| going on you can stay and fight rather than giving up and
| leaving. The people unionizing are of the "stay and fight"
| variety. Where does this false dichotomy come from that
| your only options are to stay and shut up or leave and be
| vocal?
| ATsch wrote:
| It probably comes the people that would prefer you shut
| up and stay.
| mikecoles wrote:
| Absolutely not. People that want to unionize are the lazy
| or those whose dreams are sprinkled with unicorn glitter.
| Or a combination of the two.
|
| There are no benefits to modern unions. They are another
| level of bureaucracy. If you want better conditions or
| pay, earn it.
| 14 wrote:
| So mistaken. My union has done so much for me and my
| fellow workers. Any time I have a meeting with management
| my union sits at my side. If I was wrongfully fired my
| union would fight it and even hire a lawyer. Why would I
| not want those protections? How is that not needed in a
| modern world? And finally what do you do for work that
| hour industry needs no union I am very curious?
| orestarod wrote:
| Ironic, how do you think better conditions and pay were
| earned historically?
| cad1 wrote:
| Unions are involved in more than pay negotiations. Sure I
| can work hard and earn a promotion and pay raise. Working
| hard cannot, for example, get me out of signing a non-
| compete agreement. Unionized employees could collectively
| bargain to ban non-compete agreements.
| ghostwriter wrote:
| They also can, under certain circumstances, collectively
| demand that the company stops hiring anyone outside the
| union, and make other unsubstantiated demands such as
| mandatory membership fees, that benefit the union itself
| and not high-skilled individual employees who know how to
| beneficially sell their skills to the employer without
| third-parties involved. Also, contractors with individual
| LLCs usually don't sign non-compete agreements, so you
| don't need a union to be able to benefit from an
| expertise that is currently in high demand.
| adamsea wrote:
| Yes that can occur. Lots of things can and do occur.
|
| If we think unions are bad because they do bad things
| under certain circumstances then that should also apply
| to corporations, no? Worker exploitation, ignoring
| externalities and such?
|
| So, we could get rid of corporations _and_ unions? Or ...
| have both, since like _any human institution_ , both are
| fallible.
| ghostwriter wrote:
| > Yes that can occur. Lots of things can and do occur.
|
| so, what's your solution to the problem of fallible
| unions?
|
| > Or ... have both, since like any human institution,
| both are fallible.
|
| You are yet to prove that unions solve anything in the
| setting that you outlined.
|
| How about just having corporations and a small government
| that doesn't prevent new players entering the market by
| restrictive laws and quotas, in place of those that fall
| prey to corruption, fraud, and short-sighted destructive
| practices? There's more than two options to consider.
| adamsea wrote:
| Why do you only ask about fallible unions?
|
| Why not fallible corporations?
|
| My point is simple. These are _all_ human institutions.
| They 're not "problems" with "solutions".
|
| And, to answer your second question, I believe the
| scenario you idealize creates externalities like
| environmental pollutions which kills citizens, and
| creates conditions where companies exploit workers
| (consider what the food industry, meatpacking plants,
| etc, would look like without OHSA).
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| So when a company tries to squeeze as much labor out of
| as little compensation as it can, it's a shrewd business
| move... but when employees try to get the most
| compensation for the least labor, they're lazy? Do you
| see the double standard here?
| underseacables wrote:
| It's like politicians saying that $600 is significant.
| How would they know? Google unionizing is like
| politicians asking for free parking. They seem to just
| want to unionize as a way to force their beliefs on
| others.
| prox wrote:
| That's a very black-and-white way of looking at it, you
| do know that? How is unionizing and asking for reasonable
| demands "forcing your beliefs on others"
|
| The company is not some helpless animal that just rolls
| over when a union appears. Especially if you regulate it
| well, like in Europe.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It's not a shrewd business move! Companies should pay
| well and treat their employees well, both because it's
| good for business and because it's the right thing to do.
| The adversarial model of employment where passionate
| employees fight against penny-pinching bosses is neither
| natural nor inevitable, and I think everyone who can
| avoid it should do so.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| What if paying their employees who work in their
| warehouses as little as possible and tracking them to
| maximize productivity is actually what maximizes their
| profits?
|
| What if they don't have a shortage of labor but do employ
| a large number of people in a town?
|
| Should the company continue to provide awful working
| conditions?
|
| What should motivate the company to treat their employees
| better, if not the employees getting together
| collectively to say "we're not going to take this
| anymore"?
|
| Are the employees dependent on their plight becoming a
| national scandal that shames their employer? Or should
| they be able to cause the change they need themselves?
|
| See, for example, https://revealnews.org/article/how-
| amazon-hid-its-safety-cri...
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Respectfully, I just don't understand what your stream of
| angry questions is about. As I said, what _should_ happen
| is that companies just provide good pay and working
| conditions in the first place. If workers are being
| mistreated, I have no objection to them collectively
| organizing against it.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| My questions weren't angry
|
| My point is that your claim that "it's good for business"
| to treat employees so well they don't benefit from
| advocating for themselves is clearly false in one of the
| largest tech companies.
|
| If you don't understand that, your view of corporations
| is rosy-eyed
| ygjb wrote:
| And respectfully, despite the fact that Google is an
| objectively good place to work for many people (good pay,
| good opportunities for growth and advancement, etc),
| there is an abundance of evidence in recent years that
| for minorities, and for teams under specific leaders,
| Google has not been a good place to work.
|
| Unions aren't just about wages and workloads, it's
| entirely possible that employees of tech companies (and
| shareholders of tech companies) that are unionized could
| be protected from the impact of shitty leaders through
| the power of collective bargaining and action that
| demands that abusive leaders and managers be held
| accountable.
| mlyle wrote:
| Different commenter here: I have no objection to workers
| organizing.
|
| I do think that unions are both the kind of mechanism
| that eliminates the worst workplace abuses ... but
| contributes to a workplace being policy driven and
| stifling.
|
| There's already reasons why larger employers institute
| lots of policy and remove individual team, worker, and
| manager autonomy. But a counterparty demanding a lot of
| these to be committed to in contract forming its own
| parallel bureaucracy can multiply these effects.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| I think one might reasonably say that a company like
| Google is already stifling with its bureaucracy. The
| problem is that the existing bureaucracy protects the
| company and managers and not the workers
| mlyle wrote:
| Yah. I just have bad memories of not being able to move
| my monitor from one end of a desk to another without a
| worker in a union filing a grievance. Just because you
| have lots of bureaucracy doesn't mean you can't have a
| bunch more.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| To be clear, that's about moving equipment, right?
|
| (I've had that issue as well, where the people who
| managed the equipment were in a union)
|
| Note: I think that's a misapplication of their grievances
| - it's one thing if your employer makes you move your
| office equipment to avoid hiring movers, a single person
| updating their desk or location should be an explicit
| exception
|
| But I agree with you!! Unions can cause bad policy, and
| this is a reasonable example.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I think unions should be just about wages and workloads.
| It's not obvious to me that collective bargaining is a
| good way to handle more complex questions about how
| things ought to be, because rhetoric of solidarity and
| workers rights can be very easily subverted to serve the
| personal and ideological goals of union leaders.
| ygjb wrote:
| That's some real magical thinking there.
|
| Why is it acceptable for the leaders of companies to
| subvert the company to serve the personal and ideological
| goals of the company leaders, but it's bad for the
| employees to do the same when they are often the ones who
| are called on to do the work for those goals, and are
| less likely to have the freedom to simply change jobs
| (especially during an economy melting pandemic).
|
| I recognize that in general, the leaders of a company are
| the folks who are either selected by, or are the
| investors or founders, but at the end of the day, the
| impact that those investors or founders can have is
| strongly limited by the talent they can attract.
|
| The entire tech industry is a shit show from a human
| rights perspective because of the ongoing imbalance
| between the folks who are making decisions, and the folks
| who are executing those decisions (see: the coinbase
| affair, the recent Uber ad spend revelations building off
| disclosures by other adtech researchers, the whole mess
| with Susan Fowler, the way Timnit Gebru was fired, and
| any number of issues that seem to come up on a weekly
| basis)
|
| Unions can be problematic, but it is blatantly clear that
| tech investors and founders are basically the robber
| barons of our generation. In the pursuit of power and
| profit they have advanced us towards the type of
| cyberpunk dystopias most of the folks posting on this
| forum grew up reading, and most of the people posting
| here are the cogs that enable some of the atrocious
| privacy and human rights violations that are happening on
| the regular.
|
| I am a strong believer in the role that unions play
| because I grew up in a community where unions literally
| saved lives because managers at a smelter wanted to
| maximize profits and workers didn't want to die from a
| massive cauldron of liquid copper or zinc exploding on
| them, or wanted effective safety gear when prying plates
| of zinc deposit from cathodes. It may not be quite the
| same degree of physical risk, but the folks who screen
| objectionable content on social media platforms certainly
| deserve protections. Gig economy workers deserve
| protections. Startup employees deserve protection. If
| government regulation isn't doing the job, then unions
| are the natural organizations to step in, as they have
| during some of the most prosperous times in history.
|
| Virtually all of the concerns that folks have about
| shitty unions (and shitty leadership) can be solved
| through transparency, but it is incumbent on the leaders
| selected by constituents of those groups (union members
| and investors/founders/executives) to choose
| transparency.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| When I negotiate a starting salary, I don't just stick to
| "salary and workload."
|
| I keep everything on the table. If there are any benefits
| that they can provide me that are outside the scope of
| salary and workload, it's possible I'll be able to get
| something more valuable to me while being more favorable
| for my potential employer
|
| Eg I might negotiate team size if I'm coming in to lead a
| team, I might negotiate benefits if I'm going to a
| sufficiently small company, I might negotiate how
| frequently I'm expected to travel for the company
|
| Being able to negotiate quality of life is important
| because many employers offer _what looks like_ a generous
| package but then shove their employees into dangerous
| working conditions.
|
| Remember that unions are always less powerful than your
| employer, and you can influence the union more easily
| than you can influence your employer (caveats on
| seniority in which case a union isn't for you), for
| better and worse
| 8note wrote:
| Penny pinching bosses are the same thing as profits. If
| they did not pinch, there would be no profits.
|
| Sure, labour doesn't have to fight to reduce the
| pinching, but there's no benefit to the workers in thst
| fckthisguy wrote:
| Should they still endeavor to avoid this adversarial
| relationship if the alternative is to not be treated
| well, or to see the company they work for do immoral
| things.
|
| If the alternative is to sit down and shut up, I think
| it's time to be adversarial.
|
| EDIT: just saw your reply to another commenter and it
| seems you are pro-union if needed. It didn't come across
| that way to me when I read your initial comment.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I don't disagree. But it's kind of a moot point, because
| the adversarial model of employment is what many people
| have. Google in particular recently settled a lawsuit
| about an agreement they had with other tech giants to
| depress their employees' salaries:
| https://time.com/76655/google-apple-settle-wage-fixing-
| lawsu...
| Miraste wrote:
| > The adversarial model of employment where passionate
| employees fight against penny-pinching bosses is neither
| natural nor inevitable
|
| Very few people would continue working their jobs if they
| didn't need to to survive. The legal, cultural, and
| competitive structure of corporations demands paying
| employees as little as possible for as much work as
| possible. Barring serious cultural and political change,
| I don't see how this could result in anything but
| adversarial employment for almost everyone.
|
| Treating employees well is bad for business outside
| certain bubbles, and "the right thing to do" doesn't
| factor in to these decisions.
| scsilver wrote:
| Yeah and network effects add value, coordination adds
| value, individual contributors can only do so much, a
| well oiled group of engineers has outsized production,
| and by bargaining collectively, leverage their
| productivity for better compensation.
|
| Why allow yourself to be divided and conquered?
| slumpt_ wrote:
| > Why allow yourself to be divided and conquered?
|
| Most are convinced they are "special" or otherwise immune
| from anything that would warrant union representation.
|
| At least until they maybe sustain an injury that makes
| them less productive, or even simply grow old enough to
| face age discrimination.
|
| It's always the privileged and somewhat myopic that
| discount the value of collective action. We act together
| to lift each other up. To extract the best conditions for
| our work and the most support from our employer because
| the 'free market' has given us coordinated wage
| suppression among tech giants and a mountain of sexual
| and racial discrimination in the workplace.
|
| Together we are stronger. America used to get this more
| in the early 1900s. Then the ruling class got better at
| controlling the narrative and crushing class
| consciousness.
|
| To the kids reading this who think they don't need a
| union - nearly every positive workplace condition you
| have is a result of collective action in the past.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| So when the mlb & mlbpa negotiated stricter covid
| protocols (which both allowed them to complete the season
| and improved player safety), you're saying that provided
| the players no benefits?
|
| This is a statement made in ignorance.
|
| https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-mlbpa-reportedly-
| agre...
| jgwil2 wrote:
| > Comparing Germany to USA is pointless, very different
| government, history, culture, business climate, etc.
|
| What nonsense. Comparing two countries is not the same as
| equating them. Of course we can compare and contrast the
| two, taking into account the differences. To suggest we
| cannot compare two different things is to deny a crucial
| tool of abstract, critical thinking.
| avianlyric wrote:
| > I'm not sure what more you are entitled to.
|
| You're entitled to as much as you can negotiate. Isn't this
| a founding principle of capitalism?
|
| If collective bargaining allows employees to negotiate
| more, then shouldn't they negotiate more?
| 0x445442 wrote:
| What if you're a candidate for employment and can
| negotiate more individually, as a non-union member?
| twh270 wrote:
| Many people don't know how to negotiate (well), so they
| are at a disadvantage when entering compensation
| negotiations with a prospective employer who has
| HR/management that have the knowledge/skills to be able
| to negotiate lower compensation.
|
| In addition, even assuming someone is a good negotiator,
| they generally can live without work for far less time
| than a particular employer can live without an employee
| filling a particular role. So people will often take a
| less-than-optimal compensation package because a job
| today that pays the bills is far more valuable than a job
| tomorrow that has the "best" compensation package.
|
| I'm not saying collective bargaining is the only -- or
| even the best -- solution to this, but it's not as simple
| as just saying people should negotiate more.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I would assume that based on the amount of money that is
| at stake, most software engineers would try to become
| extremely good negotiators. A 1% improvement in salary
| for a SWE could easily be worth hundreds of thousands of
| dollars over 10 years, so it is really silly to not try
| to understand how to get that money.
| travisoneill1 wrote:
| The only way to get good is practice, and as an employee
| you only do this once every couple years or so. The
| company has people who do it every day.
| davidcbc wrote:
| You would assume wrong
| Afton wrote:
| Yup. This seems like the right spot to plug this
| excellent article that has made me many 10s of thousands
| of dollars over my career:
|
| https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
|
| Good thing patio11 doesn't demand a percentage for the
| millions and millions of dollars he is responsible for
| people collectively getting in increased salary/comp.
| patio11 wrote:
| The great thing about my business model, such that it is,
| is that if I keep pushing that number higher I won't have
| to _demand_ anything.
|
| Winking, but not in the least bit a joke.
| collyw wrote:
| Being someone who is likely closer to bad negotiator than
| good negotiator, this is something that can be learned. I
| am pretty sure there are hundreds or thousands of books
| on the subject.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| This is exactly the point, I really don't know what is
| the parent arguing for here. Companies try to maximize
| the profit they can extract from employees. Why does
| parent try to paint employees doing the same in a
| negative light? We see that big corporations will not shy
| away from outright law breaking behavior if the payoff is
| likely to be greater than the fine. When the employees
| exercise wholly lawful means to maximize their payoff
| that somehow becomes icky?
|
| This mindset in the US that workforce empowerment is bad
| has to stop. It feels like the middle class in the US is
| fighting ferociously alongside the mega-corporations in
| obliterating the middle class. Corporations are not your
| friends. The C-suite at corporations, and the
| shareholders are not your friends. They are not enemies,
| but because they are more like an amoral hivemind than a
| single benevolent entity, they'll naturally gravitate
| towards maximizing their payoff, even if this is at the
| expense of the workforce. Again, I'm not saying there is
| outright malice there, it's just the natural optimum
| state for the a group of entities who currently hold most
| of the power.
|
| The US is basically a feudal society in everything but
| the name. If the Google employees manage to get traction
| and their efforts spread to the other parts of the
| industry, and perhaps even other industries, and the
| balance of power tips even just slightly back towards
| equality, that's already a win in my book.
| logicchains wrote:
| >This is exactly the point, I really don't know what is
| the parent arguing for here. Companies try to maximize
| the profit they can extract from employees. Why does
| parent try to paint employees doing the same in a
| negative light?
|
| The difference is that people associate a union with
| forced membership; people who wanted to work at Google
| and to negotiate directly with Google, rather than
| accepting what the union negotiated for them, wouldn't be
| allowed to. If the union membership was entirely
| voluntary I imagine most people wouldn't object.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| That's fair, but if such a union does not represent the
| will of the majority of Googlers, it's a bad union. It
| doesn't mean that unions are unconditionally bad. I'd
| even posit that such a union is unlikely to arise if
| indeed this is against the will of the majority of
| Googlers, since the union members would vote against such
| a mandate.
|
| The other aspect (and I'm not trying to make a strawman
| here), is I'm getting the "temporarily embarrassed
| millionaire" vibe from your post. People would object to
| a collective under the pretext that they are special
| among the 120k googlers and would somehow be able to
| negotiate a higher comp than what a hypothetical
| collective agreement would force on them.
|
| What I found downright comical is this objection comes
| before the union is formed, before any details about how
| compensation would be handled is even _discussed_. So
| again, it feels like the very people who would be
| empowered by this move (since it is them who the
| collective would represent), object to the concept before
| even discussing the details. All under this uninformed
| notion that they 'll be prevented from partaking in
| outsized compensation in the future when they inevitably
| rise to the top echelons of Google.
|
| I call this uninformed, because unless any of these
| objectors have information, they can't know what the
| comps would be, since it was not discussed to the best of
| my knowledge. Nevermind the fact that by definition, most
| Googlers will not rise to the very top echelons because
| space there is naturally limited.
| [deleted]
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The article mentions that the union membership will be
| entirely voluntary. I don't think there's much reason to
| be concerned about this changing; they'd need a majority
| of employees to establish a mandatory union, and their
| initial organizing efforts didn't get very close to that.
| [deleted]
| q-big wrote:
| > If collective bargaining allows employees to negotiate
| more, then shouldn't they negotiate more?
|
| It is not clear whether these employees are actually in a
| good position for negotiating. The idea behind unions is
| that an employer is not willing to lay off all the
| employees that are unionized (because this would lead to
| a sharp decline in productivity and thus KPIs). I
| consider how many products were scrapped by Google as
| quite some evidence that Google would be nearly as
| successful if it fired the unionized employees and
| continued working with some "core team".
|
| This does, of course, not mean that I endorse this
| reality, but when you negotiate, you better know what
| leverage you actually have.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > The idea behind unions is that an employer is not
| willing to lay off all the employees that are unionized
| (because this would lead to a sharp decline in
| productivity and thus KPIs).
|
| It's also illegal.
| q-big wrote:
| > It's also illegal.
|
| Then you find another pretense for firing many of them.
|
| Addendum: There exist so many oblique "performance
| metrics" you can apply on the employee to find such a
| pretense.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It's super obvious if the unionized employees have a much
| higher firing rate than the non-unionized employees.
| avianlyric wrote:
| > The idea behind unions is that an employer is not
| willing to lay off all the employees that are unionized
|
| I think this is a slight perversion of the truth. A union
| that relies entirely on industrial action (a.k.a.
| strikes) to get a company to change, isn't a good union.
| If a union walks into every negotiation with just an
| ultimatum, then very quickly the otherside is going to
| get fed up of their bullshit.
|
| Ideally a union should be working closely with senior
| leaders to find win-win situations for both employer and
| employee. An an obvious example would be preventing Andy
| Rubin from getting a $90mil payday for sexually harassing
| people. Clearly that's not only a serious injustice, but
| was ultimately always going to end up public and damaging
| Google brand.
|
| A union could help senior leaders find a better solution,
| part of that would be providing representation to those
| sexually harassed so they could bring a stronger case,
| and make it much easier for other senior leaders to throw
| Andy Rubin to the wolves.
| q-big wrote:
| > Ideally a union should be working closely with senior
| leaders to find win-win situations for both employer and
| employee. An an obvious example would be preventing Andy
| Rubin from getting a $90mil payday for sexually harassing
| people. Clearly that's not only a serious injustice, but
| was ultimately always going to end up public and damaging
| Google brand.
|
| If the solution is already of economic advantage for
| Google itself, you simply don't need a union since it is
| already in the economic self-interest of Google to apply
| the solution. Employees unionize to have leverage against
| the employee for topics that employees have an interest
| in, but are of economic disadvantage for the employer
| (historically in particular salaries)
| Anderkent wrote:
| This assumes that leadership has perfect knowledge of the
| situation, which is just never the case. Unions can be an
| additional source of information about the state of the
| company, for things that are not being communicated via
| the usual management structure.
| acdha wrote:
| That last point is key: a union exists outside the
| management hierarchy. There are countless examples of
| situations which are well known but ignored for political
| reasons because everyone involved reports to someone with
| a vested interest in the status quo. A union can be
| extremely useful for forcing things into the open and
| doing so in a context where people feel safer commenting
| because they're not the only one drawing attention.
| Applejinx wrote:
| How are moral, ethical or legal quandaries EVER of
| economic advantage to resolve?
|
| Doing crime, cheating, being abusive, generally are more
| profitable than not doing it, in the absence of
| consequence. 'The economic self-interest' of Google is to
| be absolutely monstrous, if and only if it can get away
| with it.
|
| And since it can...
| throwaway80332 wrote:
| > I think this is a slight perversion of the truth. A
| union that relies entirely on industrial action (a.k.a.
| strikes) to get a company to change, isn't a good union.
| If a union walks into every negotiation with just an
| ultimatum, then very quickly the otherside is going to
| get fed up of their bullshit.
|
| If those unionized googlers are worth their salt, can't
| they use more aggressive negotiation tactics, at least
| like a DDOS?
| freebuju wrote:
| > A union that relies entirely on industrial action
| (a.k.a. strikes) to get a company to change, isn't a good
| union. If a union walks into every negotiation with just
| an ultimatum, then very quickly the otherside is going to
| get fed up of their bullshit.
|
| You must have not met the publicly employed unions we
| have in other countries. Teachers, nurses unions in my
| country for ex. threaten (and sometimes they do) all the
| time to down their tools to relative success. Sometimes
| the only way to get a point across your _deaf_ employer
| is the way of the iron fist.
| onion2k wrote:
| _It seems clear to me that these are people who are
| unwilling to sacrifice some of the money they earn to
| follow their ideals and principles, so they are trying this
| instead._
|
| Employees pushing for change from the inside is probably
| the only thing that could ever make Google change, so this
| is absolutely a good thing.
|
| _If you are an engineer at Google and can 't get a job
| somewhere else, I don't know what to tell you._
|
| Something few people seem to understand about massive
| companies is that they employ some of the most niche
| specialists imaginable because they're _literally_ the only
| business that needs those skills. Working you way up and
| getting more and more specialized can be very lucrative,
| but also very limiting in the number of employers who want
| your skillset. Leaving usually comes with a big step down
| in terms of money and title. You 're essentially dropping
| back down to where you were before you specialized. It's
| not hard to imagine a lot of senior engineers at Google
| might feel a bit trapped there.
| htrp wrote:
| Amazing point that very few people get....
| kortilla wrote:
| Oh, the perils of having a 600k TC job and having to step
| down to a job only clearing 250k while you climb the
| ladder again. Oh those poor senior Google SWEs.
|
| That's not being trapped. That's being greedy. There's
| nothing wrong with trying to preserve massive TCs with
| the WLB of Google but let's not pretend there is actually
| any plight here.
| mainstreemm wrote:
| It's OK, once Google gets a union then you'll lose your
| 600k TC job and get moved back down to the 250k job
| because you haven't been at the company long enough and
| promotions and pay ranges can be based on tenure because
| that's more equitable.
|
| Your responsibilities will be the same, though.
| onion2k wrote:
| _That's not being trapped. That's being greedy._
|
| Tomato. Tomato. (This doesn't work on the internet.)
|
| No doubt it's a trap of their own making but it is a trap
| nonetheless. The idea of giving up the fancy things that
| you've worked hard for, maybe having to sell your house,
| take your kids out of a school you pay for, etc just so
| you can leave the company you work for and go somewhere
| 'better' is a _hard_ choice that no doubt feels selfish.
| The decision has a significant and material impact on
| other people after all.
|
| Very few of us would prefer to earn a 250k salary that
| comes with the freedom to move to other companies, even
| though that's _a lot_ , if there's a 600k job on offer
| instead. We'd all take the higher paying job and maybe
| regret it later. I don't think it's very fair to suggest
| those who are in that position are wrong or stupid to
| have put themselves there.
| bumby wrote:
| I'll take the devils advocate position for the sake of
| the discussion.
|
| I think what's being stated is that if you can't manage
| to be happy within the top 1% income bracket, maybe
| focusing on more wealth isn't the way to find
| fulfillment. It's not about being wrong or stupid, it's
| about misunderstanding what needs to be optimized.
| kortilla wrote:
| > We'd all take the higher paying job and maybe regret it
| later.
|
| I had the good pay at Google and I left. I had to give up
| early retirement goals to do it but there are things more
| important than just money. You can still live a very
| comfortable upper middle class life in the Bay Area on
| 250k.
|
| Additionally, most Google engineering positions are not
| that specialized and getting a position at another FAANG
| or hot startup with TC higher than 250k would not be very
| difficult.
| ant6n wrote:
| Tomayto, Tomahto.
| intended wrote:
| Or conversely - if intelligent people with experience
| from around the world in the best scenario possible feel
| that right now a union is needed - then that is a shot in
| the arm for all those others people in far worse
| situations who can't hope to start a union because they
| would be busted faster than I can write this full stop.
| [deleted]
| fckthisguy wrote:
| I find it so hypocritical that so many people espouse the
| "American Dream" of working your way up and earning more
| and more, they get so upset that someone might want to
| protect what they've earned.
|
| The truth is, many Google software engineers are unhappy
| with the political choices that Google are making. Yeah,
| they could vote with their feet and quit, but would you
| take a massive pay cut and financially destabilize your
| family as the first course of action? I wouldn't; I'd try
| to exact change from within, whilst protecting the
| benefits I'd earned in the workplace.
|
| And all that's just looking at the individuals benefits.
| Unionising would mean that I, a straight white man, could
| help support policies that empower my minority co-
| workers.
| jbullock35 wrote:
| > The truth is, many Google software engineers are
| unhappy with the political choices that Google are
| making.
|
| This defense will be relatively easy for Google's
| leadership to counter. To the extent that it's used, the
| leadership will be able to say that the unionization
| effort isn't about working conditions. Instead, it's
| about political differences (and political differences
| that are distinct from what almost anyone thinks of as
| "working conditions").
|
| I could be wrong, but "Google SWEs are unhappy with the
| leadership's political choices" doesn't sound like a
| winning rhetorical strategy.
| scarmig wrote:
| When I was at Google, I'd have been very tempted to join
| this union, if it was actually focused on improving
| compensation, bringing more objectivity to perf and
| promo, and workplace issues. But this new one seems
| primarily focused on... whinging about Timnit. Even that
| would be a big positive, if they were focused on getting
| protections for workplace freedom of speech for all
| workers and a structured dismissal process, but for some
| reason I'm skeptical that they'd be standing up for
| Damore.
| kortilla wrote:
| That fantasy depends entirely on the unionization having
| no blow-backs. A union that has to approve all business
| decisions going forward could very easily accelerate
| Google's loss of relevancy and eliminate or reverse
| Google's stock growth (which is the majority of an
| engineer's comp).
| sgift wrote:
| Or it could do the opposite by making better decisions. I
| don't see why your version is more likely than the
| opposite.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| On the flip side, this nightmare scenario is also
| currently a fantasy in an industry that has had minimal
| union activity, in a country where union power has been
| slipping for decades. This is slippery slope
| catastrophizing.
| whenitrains wrote:
| If they are in fact worth $1m TC are you ok with them
| "only" making $600k TC?
| Bakary wrote:
| I would fully encourage any FAANG employee to be as
| greedy and disruptive as possible. Anything that weakens
| the massively increasing power of these companies is a
| good thing for the population at large.
| subsubzero wrote:
| The problem is a few companies pay very well, at senior+
| levels, Google, FB, NFLX, AMZN, etc, If you work there
| for a few years and want to leave comp will be an extreme
| drop which given the cost of the bay area is a hard pill
| to swallow, why not try to unionize and fix a broken
| company?
| afandian wrote:
| Surely at that point one is as much bought into the
| ethical compromise as the money, and the knowledge of
| where it comes from?
| esoterica wrote:
| You can leave for another FAANG or high paying company.
| There is a decent sized pool of competitive paying
| companies out there, it's not just Google and Facebook.
| lumost wrote:
| Why decry the Software Engineer preserving a toe hold in
| the upper class income bracket vs. the leadership team
| making 10-100000x that amount? ( The 100k multiplier is
| the real maximal difference between what a Senior
| Engineer at FAANG makes and the owners of FAANG in a good
| year )
| peter422 wrote:
| Only founders and executives get to be greedy! Employees
| need to stay in there place. That's the rules apparently.
| PsylentKnight wrote:
| > That's being greedy.
|
| The only entity that stands to lose from their greed is
| one of the largest monopolies in the world. Why do you
| feel they need to be protected from greed?
| ilaksh wrote:
| This is for the contractors also.
| Arelius wrote:
| > Employees can ask for better, but when you already work
| at the company that pays and treats their employees like
| Google
|
| I think one important aspect is this union includes their
| contractor workers, which are treated far worse than Google
| SWE's, this allows the union to do collective bargaining on
| their behalf. Which I do think is a pretty worthwhile goal.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > I'm not sure what more you are entitled to.
|
| This article (from 2015) "Apple Makes $407,000 Profit Per
| Employee, Walmart And Retail, $6,300: Who's The
| Exploiter?":
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/12/28/apple-
| ma...
| scsilver wrote:
| I full on support their goal to clean up their yard before
| moving somewhere else. Employees are stakeholders and can
| use their leverage as they please. You somehow cast a
| negative moral light on workers for using this leverage
| when every other stakeholder, managment, stockholders,
| board members, government agencies, voters all use their
| leverage to change the ecosystem.
|
| Entitlement?
|
| You are entitled to what you can get the world to render
| for you. Not asking is allowing others to over entitle and
| enritch themselves at your loss.
| panarky wrote:
| This shows how deeply ingrained right-wing ideology has
| become in America.
|
| Outside America it is obvious that billionaires,
| oligarchs and CEOs wield power in their own self-
| interest, and that workers benefit from collective action
| in their own self-interest.
|
| But inside America the billionaires, oligarchs and CEOs
| are mythologized as benevolent actors, and workers should
| be thankful for the gifts graciously bestowed upon them.
|
| No compensation is too high for billionaires, but if some
| workers make a good salary, that's seen as extravagant,
| and the workers should be extra grateful and stop asking
| for better working conditions, too.
|
| It's bizarre how Americans celebrate ruthlessly
| competitive markets when workers compete against each
| other for food, shelter and medical care. But it's a
| cultural taboo to use those same competitive market
| forces for the benefit of workers.
| briandear wrote:
| "Workers" aren't some monolithic group. Individuals can
| certainly optimize for their own best interests. We don't
| see ourselves as victims in a collective but individuals
| all pursuing our own goals. My goals aren't necessarily
| the same as the person sitting next to me. Why should
| that guy have a voice in my compensation?
| minimuffins wrote:
| > "Workers" aren't some monolithic group
|
| Yes they are. We're all individuals and have different
| goals, wear different clothes, read different books, code
| in different editors, whatever, but objectively we all
| have something in common by way of being workers in the
| first place: we rely on wage labor to live.
|
| And crucially: we don't own the means of production (or
| we'd be owners and not workers).
|
| Why should "that guy" have a voice? Because our fortunes
| rise and fall together.
|
| Frankly it boggles my mind to no end that tech workers,
| just because they're contingently pretty comfortable
| while riding the wave of an advantageous labor market
| that gives them a lot of (contingent) leverage at the
| moment, don't understand that they (as single, individual
| people !) aren't standing as equals against like
| Alphabet, Inc. an institution that brings in double digit
| billions per year, increasingly has its hands on levers
| of policy and culture around the world, etc.
| brippalcharrid wrote:
| > We don't own the means of production
|
| You're going to have to break that down for a 21st
| century software developer on a SV messageboard. Aren't
| the means of production increasingly our own brains?
| Can't computing resources be rented cheaply enough for
| the average person to bootstrap their own business ideas
| if they're worth pursuing? I'm puzzled to see stuff like
| this in the present day, I thought it had been
| discredited within Marx's own lifetime.
| minimuffins wrote:
| I wish there was a term for "means of production" that
| was clearer or more succinct but I don't know one. The
| term is sometimes a discourse killer because it triggers
| a kind of (understandable) reflexive distaste for
| extremism and a certain kind of annoying radical
| personality or whatever.
|
| But whatever synonym we use for it, MoP is a concept that
| you can't really dispense with if you want to talk about
| this stuff productively. You don't have to buy into a
| Marxist worldview to use it.
|
| I'll take a crack at a definition: The means of
| production is the _conditions_ required for making the
| things that the economy makes, whatever that is. For oil
| production, it 's land and mineral rights in oil rich
| areas, oil derricks, trucks, private roads, refineries,
| all the plant equipment to make a refinery work, tools,
| maintenance equipment, barrels..., I'm sure there's
| 65,000 more things...whatever happens to be required to
| convert dead dinosaurs into 10W30.
|
| It sounds Marx-y, but it's a simple, straightforward
| idea.
|
| In tech, MoP is things like intellectual property, data
| centers, etc. The lines are blurred a bit because when
| work takes place inside a worker's brain instead of in a
| mine or on a factory floor where workers push things
| around with brute physical force, it's not exactly clear
| who owns what. In my view that ambiguity is something
| employers have used to mystify the relationship between
| employer and worker. They try to convince us that we are
| all just working together to make the world better, and
| anyway, we're paid well enough so why complain and rock
| the boat?
|
| But in the end the rules are the same. You can't make it
| in this system unless you own some means of production
| (or get access to them by starting a company of your own
| and becoming a capitalist yourself--which is fine, but by
| definition not everyone can do it), or you work for
| someone who has them.
|
| A related point is tech production is not actually as
| ethereal and abstract as it sounds. Yes, code is just a
| bunch of immaterial mental abstractions, in some sense,
| but it's useless without a shockingly large array of
| computers, buildings, massive data centers which are
| expensive, difficult and labor intensive to secure and
| maintain. They suck up a ton of electricity and water and
| require armed guards, etc. There's a huge amount of
| hidden physical infrastructure and somebody is going to
| own it. Whoever does will wield a ton of power in our
| society, especially as we become increasingly reliant on
| tech in our everyday lives.
| minimuffins wrote:
| As for whether Marx was "discredited" in his own
| lifetime, I don't know where people get that idea. I hear
| it or something like it all the time. Like him or not,
| he's a hugely influential thinker even today. So are most
| of his critics. It's hardly a settled issue.
|
| But the idea of MoP isn't even part of the controversial
| parts of Marx. It's just a description about how part of
| capitalism works, as he saw it. The ideas he draws on in
| that analysis come largely from Ricardo and Smith, hardly
| "discredited" radicals.
| bergstromm466 wrote:
| > > We don't own the means of production
|
| > You're going to have to break that down for a 21st
| century software developer on a SV messageboard.
|
| I love Wendy Liu's explanation on this, it's the best
| I've found:
|
| _" The Silicon Valley model of technological development
| is structurally flawed. It can't simply be tweaked in a
| more socially beneficial direction, because it was never
| intended to be useful for all of society in the first
| place. At its core, it was always a class project, meant
| to advance the interests of capital. The founders and
| investors and engineers who dutifully keep the engines
| running may not deliberately be reinforcing class
| divides, but functionally, they are carrying out
| technological development in a way that enables
| capitalism's desire for endless accumulation.
|
| Consequently, fixing the problems with the tech industry
| requires revisiting the economic assumptions that
| underpin it. If technological development is to be truly
| liberating, it cannot be funded and developed by an
| imperial machine, driven by the hare-brained schemes of
| growth-hungry investors, and owned by a miniscule clique
| not accountable to broader society.
|
| What's needed instead is a movement to reclaim
| technology: to prevent its capture by capital, and direct
| it towards creating social value. Of course, the tech
| giants are not going to cede this ground easily. This is
| why the demand of the future will not be to tame or
| reform Silicon Valley, but to abolish it. For it to serve
| society, technology will have to be liberated from the
| constraints of corporate ownership and subjected to
| democracy.
|
| If this is hard to imagine, it's probably because we're
| so used to the way technology works in today's economy
| that most of us are unable to see beyond its horizons.
| But it's time we started seeing Silicon Valley for what
| it really is: not separate from the economy, and not its
| saviour, but instead capitalism on steroids. All the
| negatives we associate with Silicon Valley -- useless
| gadgets that no one needs, companies with billion-dollar
| valuations going up in smoke, exploitation of precarious
| workers -- are a microcosm of a broader economic system.
| Abolishing Silicon Valley, then, means more than breaking
| up a few corporations; it'll require a fundamental
| transformation of the economic structures that govern
| society.
|
| Transformation
|
| In the coming years you'll read a lot of columns
| agonising over how to 'fix' Silicon Valley. Most will be
| technocratic, evacuating politics from the discussion.
| This is, after all, the framing that allowed Silicon
| Valley to grow so powerful in the first place: a binary
| choice between technological development on capital's
| terms, or remaining stuck in the past. But structural
| problems require structural solutions. Rather than
| relying on 'ethical' founders or investors to change the
| system, we need collective action to challenge it.
|
| This will mean undoing the labyrinth of intellectual
| property rights, which are intended to protect
| corporations and commodify information. It will mean
| revisiting the funding model that gave rise to the 'go-
| big-or-go-home' culture responsible for so many wasteful
| start-ups, shifting away from the return-driven venture
| capital model, and towards a state-backed social
| entrepreneurship with public responsibilities.
|
| It will also mean building worker power, within the tech
| industry and beyond it. Within it, the long-term goal
| must be a union culture encompassing all workers involved
| in production. That means not just the highly-paid
| software engineers but contractors packing boxes for
| Amazon, or driving for Uber, or cleaning offices in
| Silicon Valley should all have representation in
| decision-making structures. And beyond the confines of
| the industry, a wider-organised labour movement needs to
| offer resistance to technology being used to facilitate
| increased worker exploitation through surveillance or
| regulatory arbitrage.
|
| None of this will be easy, of course. Reclaiming the
| emancipatory potential of technology will require prying
| it from the clutches of capital. But that is a worthy
| fight. If the task of politics is to imagine a different
| world, then the job of technology is to help us get
| there. Whether technology is developed for the right ends
| -- for the public good, instead of creating a privatised
| dystopia -- will depend on the outcome of political
| struggles."_ [1]
|
| [1] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-
| valley
| Daishiman wrote:
| It is absolutely hilarious how you think that the voice
| of your colleagues in collective bargaining is somehow
| less aligned with your own interests over those of your
| company's executive body.
| scsilver wrote:
| And you are free not to join. But you are lacking
| understanding of market forces if you dont think your
| colleagues dont have any say in your wage. Them being
| there is part of an ecosystem that supports your value to
| the world. Unless you can produce professional software
| and competitive speeds all built from the ground up by
| yourself.
|
| If you work in javascript, the javascript environment has
| given you your value, companies have bought into that
| talent pool and must court it to compete. Unless you
| provide value to the world without that ecosystem and
| without that company, your wage is necessarily impacted
| by those stakeholders.
|
| You are free to press for your own goals, just dont be so
| sure those goals are divisible from your coworkers.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Reminds me of when American Airlines gave their workers a
| raise[1] resulting in financial analysts saying things
| like:
|
| > "This is frustrating. Labor is being paid first again,"
| wrote Citi analyst Kevin Crissey in a widely circulated
| note. "Shareholders get leftovers."
|
| Pretty amazing that someone could write this without a
| hint of irony.
|
| [1] https://www.vox.com/new-
| money/2017/4/29/15471634/american-ai...
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| You mean a note written to help determine the value of a
| _stock_ focuses on the effect of a decision on _that
| stock_ rather than something else that you (a non-
| shareholder possibly?) find important? Do you really find
| that surprising? Should be no more surprising than the
| idea that an internal union communication would focus
| more on benefits to workers instead of benefits to
| shareholders. Neither of the above is meant to be some
| kind of ethical treatise, why would we expect them to be
| so?
| mattmcknight wrote:
| A union is not a competitive market force. It is a means
| to force an employer to use a monopoly supplier of labor.
| It's anti-competitive.
| xav0989 wrote:
| Interestingly, (nearly) all of the Canadian government
| public servants are unionized. When you get hired, you
| can decide whether you wish to join the union or not, but
| the union will still collectively bargain on your behalf
| no matter what you choose.
|
| The union is (mostly) in place to work on ensuring
| benefits such as sick leave, parental leave top-ups,
| overtime limits, etc. They also are there to ensure that
| management respects the rules when dealing with the
| workforce.
| Thlom wrote:
| I think this is something that only happens in the US.
| I've never heard of a union being a supplier of labor
| anywhere else.
| tcgv wrote:
| This is only one side of the coin. Unions can go that
| way, sure, and it should be avoided through regulation.
|
| Unions are a way of balancing the power equation between
| companies and workers. Neither side should be in
| disadvantage.
| 8note wrote:
| Nothing says you can't have multiple competing unions.
|
| Given that capital is overwhelmingly concentrated into a
| few hands, the job "market" is also a monopolization. You
| can get a different job but the owners are always the
| same
| fckthisguy wrote:
| That's not always the case though. There's plenty of
| industries and workplaces the world over that benefit
| from unions whilst still maintaining the discretion to
| hire who they will.
|
| I've worked in a company with both union and non union
| staff and I believe the union benefited all of us without
| limiting the company in any meaningfully negative way.
|
| Contrast this with shareholders and C level execs who
| have immense power and often world it to the detremen of
| the workers.
|
| That same company was literally bought out and our office
| was shuttered.
|
| Unionising allowed us to collectively bargain for better
| severance pay and allowed us to prioritize those of us
| who had additional family/visa considerations.
| kortilla wrote:
| > But it's a cultural taboo to use those same competitive
| market forces for the benefit of workers.
|
| Forming a union is not competitive, it's the opposite.
| When you gather up all of the suppliers of something (in
| this case employees are supplying labor) and collectively
| fix a price that is exactly what anti-trust legislation
| is trying to prevent.
|
| It's not a cultural taboo to be pro-union on the left
| because it's _not_ free market. It is a cultural taboo on
| the right precisely because they are seen as discouraging
| competition and rewarding tenure over competence.
| minimuffins wrote:
| > Forming a union is not competitive, it's the opposite.
|
| Yes.
|
| > that is exactly what anti-trust legislation is trying
| to prevent.
|
| This is so muddled.
|
| Anti-trust and pro-labor policies are not at odds.
| Corporations and the people who do their work for them
| are not cut from the same cloth. When the owners of the
| world's productive capacity collude to fix prices, that's
| a trust. When laborers who (by definition) do not own the
| productive capacity, it's not. It's a union. These are
| two different words for two different concepts about two
| fundamentally different kinds of entities (capital and
| labor).
|
| Thinking of the wage relation as a bargain between equals
| is a cope. You're not as powerful as Google.
|
| There is a reason we don't talk about employers
| (especially enormous ones Like Alphabet that are becoming
| so deeply integrated into modern life and politics that
| it's now difficult to fully conceive of) and individual
| working people as if they are the same kind of thing.
|
| One is a supranational bohemoth that owns an enormous
| productive capacity, the other relies on wage labor to
| live. (That's not a sob story, just a true fact. You can
| rely on wage labor and still live pretty comfortably. I
| do.)
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| > laborers who (by definition) do not own the productive
| capacity
|
| Is this really true for a job like SWE where all you need
| to do the job is a laptop and internet?
| minimuffins wrote:
| Yes because to actually produce the way Google produces
| you need more than a bunch of laptops. Think about all
| the kinds of capital Google owns from IP to massive data
| centers.
|
| On top of that they have huge sway with governments and a
| hand in control of cultural production.
|
| It's easier to start a software company than an oil
| company because it takes way less fixed capital but the
| same rules as the rest of political economy apply on the
| whole.
| scsilver wrote:
| You also need a developer community, standards bodies,
| universities, regulatory bodies. You are made valueable
| by the interplay of all those institutions. Guess who
| makes your laptop and provides access to your internet,
| its directories, and communication channels, the same
| companies you have to work for.
| 8note wrote:
| The SWE does not own the data center though
| fckthisguy wrote:
| But a union doesn't have to set a price for work. And the
| company can often hire outside of the union if they want
| (many are opt-in for employees).
|
| Moreover, the free market still has checks and measures
| to ensure workers are treated fairly and equally. Unions
| are just another implementation of that - the only
| difference is that they're employee run not government
| run.
| bumby wrote:
| I'm not sure you understand how collective bargaining
| works. A company enters into a _contract_ with a union.
| Contracts are not anti-market.
|
| Edit: Downvotes are fine, but at least have the courtesy
| of adding to the discussion by explaining why the above
| point misses the mark
| spicybright wrote:
| Don't know why this is down voted, because it's spot on.
|
| It's what gives us advantages in areas like
| medical/technical research, powerful mega corporations
| that can effect global markets, and schooling. All at the
| cost of the lives of people that crank the cogs forward
| to maintain it all.
| prox wrote:
| Edit : See comment below
| AsyncAwait wrote:
| Seriously?[1]
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/07/covid-19
| -cr...
| prox wrote:
| I was actually agreeing with that comment, but I can see
| how it got misconstrued. There really aren't any good
| arguments against a union, if done (regulated) well.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| I disagree that this is clearly indicative of anything.
|
| >But inside America the billionaires, oligarchs and CEOs
| are mythologized as benevolent actors, and workers should
| be thankful for the gifts graciously bestowed upon them.
|
| I've spent my life living in different parts of America,
| and this sounds very out of touch.
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/03/02/most-
| america...
|
| I've come across other polling that indicates similar
| trends.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| scsilver wrote:
| Hey thats protestantism for you...
| sidlls wrote:
| This comment does not deserve these downvotes. Not only
| is it not aggressively, negatively contentious or
| malicious, but it's a thoughtful commentary on the state
| of worker/owner relations that has direct and specific
| relevance to tech work in general.
| Izkata wrote:
| > negatively contentious
|
| ...did you miss the first sentence?
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. I wouldn't work at Google for a few
| extra bucks, because I know the price of these few extra
| bucks is payed by society as a whole.
|
| If you're a talented professional at Google, and want to
| make a positive impact in the world, join a company that
| cares about making a positive impact in the world.
| 8note wrote:
| Getting a job somewhere doesn't mean being able to
| negotiate for the things you want.
|
| Eg. Google workers don't like the facial recognition or
| censoring search results in China.
|
| Getting a new job isn't going to change that, nor is
| closing down orgs going to be part of your job offer
| negotiation
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You're entitled to nothing. Given that it's 2021 and the
| entire workplace is in play, it's foolish to assume that
| the status quo is the status quo.
|
| The smart move is to have a contract that addresses various
| aspects of work.
| mrzimmerman wrote:
| That is exactly what unions do. They setup contracts with
| the employer to ensure protections and compensation using
| collective bargaining to balance out the power of the
| employer for the employer.
|
| Collectively bargaining for hundreds or thousands of
| employees is obviously more powerful then a single
| individual bargaining against the same employer,
| especially when you factor in the information and
| resource asymmetry that exists in the latter situation.
| chartpath wrote:
| As the article says, that is not the kind of union they
| set up. They set up a "members only union" which is
| voluntary to join or not. Either you are unhappy with
| conditions and need protection so you join for the the
| support network, or you are happy with conditions but
| join anyway out of solidarity with the lower classes of
| employees. https://tcf.org/content/report/members-only-
| unions-can-they-...
|
| Or not join at all, which is fine, but punching down and
| across at your coworkers comes across as not being a team
| player.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| >Comparing Germany to USA is pointless, very different
| government, history, culture, business climate, etc.
|
| Ah there it is. The libertarian's go to when one compares
| the US to any country with better institutions such as
| universal healthcare, unions, etc. We couldn't _possibly_
| do that here, no, American 'exceptionalism' only goes so
| far it seems.
| wbl wrote:
| Not having sexual abusers in management stay with no
| repercussions?
|
| Why shouldn't Googlers be entitled to more of what they
| produce?
| orthecreedence wrote:
| Never thought I'd see the day Karl argued against unions...
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| "Entitled" has nothing to do with it. Workers get paid
| based on how much they can negotiate. Forming a union
| improves bargaining power.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > but when you already work at the company that pays and
| treats their employees like Google, I'm not sure what more
| you are entitled to.
|
| Google made something like 300,000 in profit per employee
| in 2019. There are regular complaints about benefits and
| pay multipliers being cut back. Why shouldn't workers seek
| to capture as much of their labor as possible? People don't
| seem to complain when businesses do that.
| mordymoop wrote:
| I wonder if the company will respond to this sort of
| incentive by hiring hundreds of thousands of new
| employees to absorb the "profit" rather than pay
| employees far in excess of market rate.
| Frost1x wrote:
| Isn't there a massive 'labor shortage'? If that's already
| the case, that proposal seems even more impossible. You
| could hire non-tech workers and pivot to other industries
| where you can employ other people.
|
| I suppose they could try outsourcing again/more and see
| how that works out.
| thinkloop wrote:
| > Why shouldn't workers seek to capture as much of their
| labor as possible?
|
| That is not a fair framing. Labor is not the sole cause
| of profit. Imagine a company that spent billions to
| automate every process requiring only a single human to
| push a button every 10 minutes to produce its output.
| This company would be making "billions per employee", but
| it wouldn't make sense to pay that employee billions for
| that job.
| Raidion wrote:
| In this somewhat reductionist approach, would it be fair
| that CEO overseeing that process be paid billions of
| dollars?
|
| I think this is a decent thought experiment for ownership
| of an AI sufficiently good at a hard and profitable
| problem. Should that company be able to collect those
| billions forever even if they no longer have to do any
| work?
| jfim wrote:
| I'd argue that most of their capital comes from their
| employees, not their hardware. Any company can buy
| hardware that's functionally equivalent to Google's. Even
| with a massive pile of cash and being able to buy the
| same amount of hardware that Google has, it would be
| useless without the software that makes it run, and that
| software is made by their employees.
|
| There are definitely sectors of the industry (such as
| manufacturing or insurance) where capital and automation
| drives value generation, but Google is in the business of
| writing software, which isn't really automatable.
| tanilama wrote:
| But software can be written anywhere.
|
| I do think Google has good engineers, but they are really
| not that indispensable
| simias wrote:
| >Imagine a company that spent billions to automate every
| process requiring only a single human to push a button
| every 10 minutes to produce its output. This company
| would be making "billions per employee", but it wouldn't
| make sense to pay that employee billions for that job.
|
| Why not?
|
| Why should it go into the shareholder's pockets instead
| of the people who actually do the work and create the
| value? What if the people actually working were to, I
| dunno, seize the means of production or something?
|
| To be clear while I understand that there are many
| reasonable objections to socialism it bothers me that
| your comment presents capitalism as self-evident. Even if
| you believe that it's the best (or at least least worst)
| system, you should always question it.
|
| If a company generates billions in profit the question of
| how this profit is divided among the owners and the
| workers should forever remain an open question I think.
| jfim wrote:
| > Why should it go into the shareholder's pockets instead
| of the people who actually do the work and create the
| value?
|
| Proponents of the shareholder value model would argue
| that the point of a business is to maximize that value,
| and that it's better to return that value to shareholders
| instead of giving it to employees.
|
| In the case of the button pressing employee, if they can
| find someone that would press the same button for minimum
| wage instead of billions per year, with functionally
| equivalent output, then from that perspective it would
| make sense to replace that expensive employee with a
| cheaper one, as that would maximize shareholder value.
|
| In practice, things aren't as simple, since value
| maximization can have all kinds of perverse effects (eg.
| in that model, dumping sewage into a lake is a great idea
| if the fine is smaller than the resulting shareholder
| value) and shareholder value is kind of detached nowadays
| with profitless companies and many companies not electing
| to pay dividends.
| simias wrote:
| Well the original example was obviously flawed because if
| all that's left for the employee to do is literally just
| press a button, then it would've been automated as well.
|
| In a company like Google the argument that the workforce
| is effectively just a commodity that could be replaced
| easily and at will is obviously not applicable. Most of
| Google engineers are not button pushers.
| parasubvert wrote:
| "Value creation" is not in the labor of pushing a button.
| It's in the human capital, management that led to the
| creation of the system.
|
| This example is nonsensical as a bunch of behind the
| scenes contractors and management presumably set up the
| system. Except that as soon as the contractors leaves,
| you've lost your primary factor of production: the
| knowledge of how the whole thing works. the days where
| management doubles as knowledge workers are long gone.
|
| As for profit sharing, that is a longer conversation, but
| most of the largest companies today do profit sharing in
| the form of stock grants, pension and share purchase
| programs.
| ddingus wrote:
| The only source of capital is labor.
|
| All that money spent on automation paid for labor, who
| has an interest in the fruits of said labor.
|
| Collective labor is one way to secure an equitable share
| of that fruit.
|
| Also, someone has to pay for that output. How exactly
| does that happen when people lack income?
|
| Fact is that company so automated needs sales,
| maintenance, innovation and all the stuff needed to
| endure and compete over time.
|
| If they are not paying labor, their product would be
| devalued quickly, and or they would experience increasing
| trouble over time.
|
| The ones who know how to deal with that have awesome
| position and would expect to be compensated handsomely.
| chii wrote:
| > their product would be devalued quickly
|
| which means more people can afford said product.
| Automation is increasing productivity and output
| efficiency.
| ddingus wrote:
| Maybe. A lot depends on personal cost / risk exposure
| relative to income.
|
| And that devaluation does mean NOT making billions per
| employee too.
| jellicle wrote:
| Why not? They're doing the labor. You're just assuming
| your conclusion here. Your premise is that "having
| capital" deserves a reward and "doing work" doesn't, and
| so your conclusion is that having capital should be
| rewarded and doing labor should not be. But if you change
| your premise, the results can change too.
| flamble wrote:
| All of that capital was produced by labor, except what
| fraction of the value derives from raw natural resources
| pre-extraction.
|
| So it is absolutely a fair framing to state "why
| shouldn't workers seek to capture as much of their labor
| as possible?". If their labor produces capital which
| produces profits, why are those profits not fair game to
| bargain over?
|
| In your example, it wouldn't make sense to pay the one
| remaining employee all of the profits, but it would have
| made perfect sense for all the employees who produced the
| perfectly automated factory to negotiate for a share of
| the profits.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| >All of that capital was produced by labor
|
| Not all capital is the result of labor. Economists put
| around a third of modern capital to be the result of
| labor, around a third from leveraging capital, and around
| a third created by technology.
|
| Labor, investment, and technology all drive new capital
| creation.
| adamsea wrote:
| Where does technology come from?
|
| Labor. The labor of _knowledge workers_ , which is what
| software engineers are called by economists ...
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| Yes, labor is a component. So is capital. And,
| recursively, so is technology. That is why economists
| don't claim all value is created solely by labor, and why
| econometrics measures the contribution of various
| components.
|
| Where does Labor come from? From being taught skills -
| and that took capital to train someone before their labor
| could add value. All pieces are interrelated, and modern
| economies cannot work by ignoring that all pieces are
| _needed_.
|
| >The labor of knowledge workers, which is what software
| engineers are called by economists
|
| And those knowledge workers did their labor with zero
| capital investment before by an employer (or themselves)?
| Computers, tools, infrastructure all were provided so the
| knowledge worker could work, and those pieces required
| capital before the knowledge worker could produce labor.
|
| I have hard time understanding why so many people cannot
| accept that capital is a valid and necessary input to
| creating things, including creating more capital, which
| can then be invested in yet further productive pursuits.
| chii wrote:
| > all the employees who produced the perfectly automated
| factory to negotiate for a share of the profits.
|
| if they were employees, they would've been paid
| compensation for making such automation. Unless they are
| a shareholder (either by investing initial capital, or by
| negotiated compensation in the form of equity), they are
| absolutely not entitled to any profit from their output.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| That's the water we swim in, but can you actually make an
| argument for why things should be that way?
|
| We allow infinite returns to "shareholders" long after
| their risk has been reasonably rewarded. Why should we?
| chii wrote:
| > can you actually make an argument for why things should
| be that way?
|
| yes - because it didn't work any other way. Look at how
| communism fared? Tell me a way to incentivize people to
| invest their capital any other way?
| GavinMcG wrote:
| You're saying the possibility of unlimited returns from
| others' labor is the _only incentive_ people have to
| invest capital?
| _-o-_ wrote:
| That was the deal made when those shares were created and
| sold. Compared to all other parties they seem to be more
| deserving - at some point shareholders took a financial
| risk.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Imagine something that doesn't exist and then claim it's
| "fair framing" to argue as if it does?
|
| One of the most depressing things about the US is the
| corporate authoritarianism that many employees seem to
| suffer from.
|
| _Of course_ shareholders should have priority over
| workers because... that 's just the "natural" order of
| things?
|
| If a company fails, shareholders risk some small
| percentage of capital they can mostly afford to lose,
| while workers risk poverty and homelessness?
|
| It makes no sense at all to me. Not just from the point
| of view of comp, but from the point of view of democracy.
| Because you can't have a functioning democracy when you
| have huge power differentials between different castes.
|
| Unions - including board representation for unions - are
| one way to shrink those power differentials. They're not
| the only way and they're not infallible, but when they do
| work they're guaranteed to better than nothing.
|
| They not only redistribute income, but they also give
| individuals collective pushback against corporate
| bullying and abuse.
|
| Or perhaps you'd rather continue to grumble that HR is
| always there to take the company's side, but do nothing
| about it?
| mempko wrote:
| Really sad you are being downvoted.
| Simulacra wrote:
| Because they are workers. If they want to "capture" some
| of that profit, to start their own company, or work at a
| different company. Unions today are more about punishing
| the owners for making too much profit than it is about
| keeping anyone safe or fair. Just because you work at a
| company does not give you "ownership."
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Employee compensation is tied to profit in the form of
| RSUs. A decline in profit would substantially decrease
| the value of those RSUs and thus compensation. You can't
| just decrease profit in a vacuum and hand that revenue to
| employees, you have to consider the second-order effects.
| qeternity wrote:
| They absolutely should. And companies/management have a
| fiduciary duty to give them as little as possible. This
| is the competition that gives rise to capitalist
| efficiencies.
|
| The concern from people like myself is that another word
| for a union is a cartel. When companies form cartels and
| engage in anti-competitive behavior, we penalize them
| severely (in theory at least...but that's another issue).
| Yet when labor colludes, we simply call it a union.
|
| Tech is especially interesting because the usual claims
| of "workers have less power individually" (which is
| always true in all industries) is really really not a
| great argument in tech. The labor market in tech is so
| unbelievably competitive, and the average worker has
| leverage that is only seen in the upper echelons of other
| industries.
| [deleted]
| acdha wrote:
| > And companies/management have a fiduciary duty to give
| them as little as possible.
|
| This is a popular myth but if you do any research you'll
| learn it's not true. There's no such requirement because
| there's no way to reliably predict the future impact of
| decisions: for example, does paying "too much" for
| employees lower turnover and avoid them starting
| competitors? Skimping on maintenance, outsourcing jobs,
| or taking on debt will definitely "maximize" shareholder
| value for a little while, until the bill comes due.
|
| Think for a minute about how you'd argue any of those
| points in court and you'll understand why the real laws
| have significant deference to executives' judgement.
| Neither side would have any trouble finding people to say
| their decision was best, and even after the fact there
| are inevitably many factors which people can point to
| when explaining whatever happened.
| matz1 wrote:
| I think more accurate to say the fiduciary duty is to
| make money as much as possible. At least that I would
| want the my company to do.
| acdha wrote:
| Try to find a legal statement to that effect. You'll find
| a lot of people claiming that but there's nothing binding
| for the reasons I gave: nothing is certain in business
| and people will reasonably differ about the best ways to
| produce growth over any non-trivial time scale. Remember
| all of the people who very confidently said that Apple
| was wasting its time with phones and would never overtake
| Nokia?
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Management is a cartel. I can't negotiate my pay directly
| with my manager.
| Anderkent wrote:
| >I can't negotiate my pay directly with my manager.
|
| Why not? If you go talk to your manager and tell him "I
| have another offer at XXX, I want you to match it or I'm
| leaving" what is going to happen?
| Afton wrote:
| You absolutely can. Managers will push back with "rules"
| that only apply if management doesn't want to pay you
| more. Or they will go to HR to get an exception _if_ they
| think you are worth that exception (that is, if they aren
| 't worried about not being able to match an offer for an
| employee that they _really_ care about). You can
| absolutely negotiate.
|
| In the past, I've been quite open when I thought that I
| needed more money to my manager, and have even given
| specific ways of making me "not distracted by money
| concerns". Sometimes they can meet those goals, sometimes
| they can't.
|
| Personally, the offer as you've given it is probably more
| adversarial than I'd prefer. Something like "I feel like
| I'm worth more to the company than X, I feel like I'm
| worth Y, and here is a list of reasons, here is my career
| goals, etc etc". Then if they don't match it, you can
| accept that other offer. But YMMV.
| johnathandos wrote:
| If I were the manager, I'd respond to this by wishing the
| person luck and asking when their last day will be.
| qeternity wrote:
| That's not the legal or economic definition of a cartel.
| mrzimmerman wrote:
| Nor is a union the economic or legal definition of a
| cartel. A union is closer to creating a company that acts
| as a negotiating and protective apparatus for its
| employees as they do contractual work for other
| companies.
|
| That isn't a cartel and there can be multiple, competing
| unions working for the same type of workers in the same
| industry.
| lokar wrote:
| Not at Google you can't
| jimcsharp wrote:
| I would liken unions to corporations rather than cartels.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Sure, but will these salad days continue forever? I feel
| like most of HN is too young to remember the dot-com
| crash.
|
| Seems far better to unionise and try to institutionalise
| and lock-in better pay and working conditions then to
| count on always having a hypercompetitive labor market
| and obscenely profitable employers.
| antisoeu wrote:
| Just call it what it is, greed. Why is it greedy if
| company owners want to make money, but "good and social"
| if workers want to make money?
|
| I don't think the "earnings per employee" metric entitles
| employees to anything.
| salawat wrote:
| I disagree, particularly as someone who worked fror a
| firm making over 1000000 per employee.
|
| It's hard to square that kind of return only benefitting
| shareholders. You'd be hard pressed as an employee to get
| a 3% raise or whatnot to keep up with inflation, or you'd
| have the call center people making pennies, or
| micromanaged down to the second, but over a milkion per
| employee was earned.
|
| There is a certain point where one has to stop and
| reevaluate the nature of the value transfer going on.
| That same business ate years of my life keeping it
| afloat, but at the first opportunity for equity holders,
| dropped the floor out by sellout. Not that I'd want to go
| back given the business model but it does lead to somber
| reflection and a heartfelt contemplation of tge
| advantaged position held by the middle-man.
| antisoeu wrote:
| "That same business ate years of my life keeping it
| afloat"
|
| Presumably you were paid for your services. If you were
| unhappy with the pay, you should have renegotiated or
| changed jobs.
| minimuffins wrote:
| No, what "entitles" them is that they do the work and
| generate the profit and therefore have the power to
| organize themselves into a coherent, self-interested
| group that can withhold their labor if they don't get
| what they want.
|
| Who cares what you think they're "entitled" to?
| antisoeu wrote:
| As long as they get no special rights to form their
| unions, fine. In my country, unions get special
| protections by law, which is not OK.
|
| If workers simply choose to monopolize, of course they
| can do that. Of course laws against monopolies in general
| should then also be abolished, though.
|
| You can not be in favor of unions, but opposed to
| monopolies, as unions are also monopolies.
|
| In that sense, no, I don't care what they feel entitled
| to - there should just be no obligation to give them what
| they feel they are entitled to.
| minimuffins wrote:
| We're never going to have a productive discussion if you
| think capital and labor are the same thing.
| antisoeu wrote:
| Exactly how a discussion with a Marxist is expected to go
| down, just invent random concepts and twist the meaning
| of words until a discussion becomes impossible
|
| I prefer to stick to physics, rather than those arbitrary
| concepts of "capital" and "labor". Let's cut the bullshit
| and look at reality. Moving/changing things costs energy,
| that is the reality.
| SerLava wrote:
| Could be neither, or it could be that adding to 20
| billion dollars is different than adding to 100 thousand
| dollars.
| ddingus wrote:
| Nobody mentioned entitlement. That money labor left on
| the table.
|
| Together they can get more of it.
|
| Simple as that.
| antisoeu wrote:
| If it is not entitlement, it is greed. I don't say greed
| is wrong or should be forbidden, just that they should be
| honest about it.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| What makes it greed, and not enlightened self-interest or
| rational economic behavior?
| Domenic_S wrote:
| The unspoken assumption behind this line of thinking is
| "if an entity/person _can_ afford to pay more, the entity
| /person on the other side of the deal deserves more".
| This reasoning is applied to arguments about other things
| as well, such as taxes.
|
| The problems with it become apparent when you realize
| that the standard isn't applied everywhere and is really
| impossible to evaluate fairly, so the conclusions are
| derived from personal ethics and concepts of "fairness"
| instead.
|
| As an example, "they can afford it" is often used as an
| argument in favor of higher taxes on "the wealthy"
| (whatever that means), yet nobody says "you can afford to
| pay starbucks more for your coffee". You could have
| certainly afforded to pay more for your car or house or
| macbook, so why didn't you if "you can afford it" is the
| bar? Likewise many SV tech workers could "afford" to take
| pay _cuts_ , but nobody's arguing that - why not, if "you
| can afford it" is the measure?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| There's the asymmetry at play; with their immense wealth,
| these corporations can more easily pay employees more and
| have less effect on their bottom line- though perhaps
| simple math will prove this point wrong- than individual
| workers choosing to take pay cuts. But while this is a
| good discussion, I don't see how any of this
| differentiates being greedy from being a rational actor
| or homo economicus.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| It's rational in the sense that you'd seek to maximize
| your comp. But the reasoning of "they can afford it,
| therefore I should get more" is _not_ a rational argument
| because (1) it makes enormous and unstated assumptions
| about what a company can /will/should do with its money
| and (2) the conclusion doesn't logically flow from the
| premise. It's underpants gnome reasoning, and I have yet
| to see a compelling argument that fills in the "???"
| step.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| But for the individual, it is rational to try to maximize
| their own share of the profit, is it not? And since we're
| talking about immensely wealthy corporations, some of
| which have nice margins and billions of dollars of cash
| in reserve, it's a bit of an intuitive step. To go back
| to your previous post, deserve's got nothing to do with
| it. The rational individual would seek to optimize their
| share, even if it involves questioning accepted wisdom.
| ddingus wrote:
| Maybe.
|
| There is a point of view framed in things being equitable
| too. The motivations are more broad, balance of society,
| etc...
|
| Then again, the members may simply need more too.
|
| Costs and risks relative to income can change, or are not
| well balanced. This is a standard of living, needs
| argument.
|
| What differentiates it from greed is the fact than an
| answer can come from either side of the equation. Lower
| costs and risks can work the same as more compensation
| does.
|
| None of this, nor my earlier comment speaks to whether
| greed is good or bad. It can be, or not and context
| matters.
| Frost1x wrote:
| Is it really 'greed' when the capital ownership class
| want more money? That's not the narrative I hear pretty
| much everywhere, I simply hear it rebranded to: growing
| the economy, improving life, creating jobs, etc. It all
| depends on the argument and who wants what.
|
| Ultimately, capitalism drives greedy behaviors in
| _everyone_ either by choice or by necessity. At some
| point if you don't adopt similar behaviors to the greedy,
| you will be taken advantage of, guaranteed. One of the
| flaws of this system is that competition is what props it
| up and gives it stability, so _everyone_ has to play the
| optimization game as much as the most optimal are
| optimizing, otherwise they 're 'losing' in our economic
| system, relatively speaking.
|
| So yes, it's the same optimization like behaviors Google
| and other giant businesses in the capital ownership class
| are utilizing. Are the motives different (greed,
| survival, sense of 'fair' compensation)? Maybe, maybe
| not, but if you don't play the game it doesn't matter
| because you're being taken advantage of and the state
| will only decline.
|
| I for one applaud Google employees pushing this and hope
| they can set a precedent for the entire industry. There
| is widespread rampant abuse in tech no one talks about or
| just ingore and it's often waved away because _'...but
| money '_ and employment mobility. None of these fix the
| underlying problems and are often merely excuses made to
| allow abuse to grow and fester.
| antisoeu wrote:
| "everyone has to play the optimization game as much as
| the most optimal are optimizing, otherwise they're
| 'losing' in our economic system, relatively speaking."
|
| If a person is happy with their salary, are they really
| being taken advantage of? Just because they could perhaps
| get a better salary, doesn't mean they are forced to go
| for it. I suspect such cases are also rarer than one
| might think. I would expect most people to occasionally
| check their market value.
|
| "greed" is just a negative way to frame it. Ultimately,
| striving for optimal outcomes is what stabilizes systems
| and makes them healthier and more efficient. Competition
| is the only known way to ensure fair prices. Every other
| approach can and will be gamed (corruption), but you can
| not fake prices.
|
| It's also all nice to talk about being social, but I
| think many employees are less happy in reality when they
| find they have to compensate for their unproductive
| colleagues and even get less pay. That gets people riled
| up quickly in the real world.
| newsclues wrote:
| I don't think profit per employee entitles an employee to
| more salary, but it can justify or prove that the company
| can afford to pay more.
|
| I think unions exist specifically to help employees in
| their struggle to be greedy against a greedy boss or
| shareholders.
|
| Do you work harder in a partnership where you get 50% or
| as an employee making 1% of your value?
|
| Has corporate greed harmed its own profits and innovation
| by failing to adequately pay its employees?
|
| I think greed is good to a point, then it becomes
| detrimental to self and society.
| antisoeu wrote:
| The "they will work harder" argument is bullshit. If that
| would apply, companies giving their employees more say
| and shares would be more successful, and drive away the
| others, all without the need to form unions.
|
| I mean it is possible that shareholders will work harder.
| But that is not an argument for unions.
|
| Also, some employees are people like cooks or janitors.
| Will they really work harder, and what would that even
| mean? What if they just do their jobs? Does a janitor at
| Google really deserve more money than a janitor somewhere
| else? What makes them the "chosen ones"? Just lucky to
| work for a successful company?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > Does a janitor at Google really deserve more money than
| a janitor somewhere else? What makes them the "chosen
| ones"? Just lucky to work for a successful company?
|
| Google makes a ton of money off of each employee, and
| could probably afford it.
|
| https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-
| Employee.html
|
| Google, like much of Silicon Valley, regularly puts forth
| the messaging that it represents the future, not only in
| terms of technology but in terms of society. ("Making the
| world a better place." "Don't be evil.") Forward-thinking
| often lends itself towards democratization, and of
| personal empowerment. So if Google wants to portray
| itself as futuristic, and its employees so lucky to be
| working for such a futuristic organization, then it would
| follow based on their own company line that janitors at
| Google might be entitled to more money at more
| traditional, hierarchical, less worker-empowering
| companies.
|
| If Google didn't want their employees to set fires, then
| maybe they shouldn't taught them them the Promethean
| secret. Perhaps tech companies should cease pretending to
| be so much nobler than every other traditional form of
| business. The people running Google created this culture.
| antisoeu wrote:
| No matter what revenue they generate, I find it hard to
| argue that a janitor at Google deserves more than a
| janitor somewhere else. Presumably they are all doing the
| same kind of work. Doesn't mean Google shouldn't pay
| their janitors more, just that they shouldn't have to.
|
| True about Google creating that culture themselves, I
| don't pity them. I just reject the sentiment in general.
| arcticbull wrote:
| It's not. Both sides want money. Currently, a small
| minority of authoritarians (management is authoritarian
| by nature - and that's okay) get to decide how much of
| the company profit is shared with employees. Now,
| employees get to decide alongside them. This reduces the
| power differential between the groups. Now they can
| decide what fair is on a more level playing field.
|
| This is simply about improving the power differential
| between management and labor. If that means more money,
| so be it. It may well not. It might be more about working
| conditions or projects.
|
| I guess my question to you is why do you demand democracy
| in government, but accept authoritarianism at work no
| questions asked?
| kortilla wrote:
| > I guess my question to you is why do you demand
| democracy in government, but accept authoritarianism at
| work no questions asked?
|
| Because employment is a freely associated business
| relationship. I don't demand democracy in my business
| relationship with in-n-out when I order a burger nor do I
| demand democracy when a company pays me for some software
| development.
|
| I do demand democracy from a government that makes laws I
| cannot opt out of and controls the courts which enforce
| all disputes in my life.
|
| Even the largest companies in the world can be avoided by
| someone who doesn't want to do business with them. The
| same is not true of the government.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| But employment is still an asymmetrical relationship
| where employees are submitting themselves to the
| authority of employers. And if you're putting yourself in
| a situation where you're under another's authority,
| wouldn't you want to maximize your own autonomy
| underneath it, via democracy? Even in "freely associated
| business relationship" you seek the power to negotiate
| and maintain your own preferences. In-n-Out has a
| customizable menu. Contractors negotiate their contracts
| for flexible terms.
|
| > Even the largest companies in the world can be avoided
| by someone who doesn't want to do business with them. The
| same is not true of the government.
|
| There's still the right of exit, as the libertarians call
| it. One can switch citizenships, or choose to relocate
| themselves to the few remaining frontiers where
| governance is minimal. Changing one's residence can be
| very difficult, but how is changing employment any less
| so?
| antisoeu wrote:
| "authoritarians" - is that what they call entrepreneurs
| these days?
|
| Personally I think the category "employee" should be
| forbidden. It is a pure social construct. Why is anybody
| entitled to be an "employee" and bitch about
| "authoritarians"?
|
| Everybody is an entrepreneur. If you have nothing, you
| sell your body and work hours. But that's just a contract
| like every other contract.
|
| In any case, if those workers don't like the
| authoritarians, they are free to start their own
| companies. Then they get to call the shots.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > "authoritarians" - is that what they call entrepreneurs
| these days?
|
| Yup, and I don't think it's a bad thing, necessarily.
|
| Of course they're authoritarians, you do what your boss
| says or you get out. That's authoritarianism. That
| doesn't mean it's wrong or bad or ill suited to the task,
| necessarily.
|
| Singapore is authoritarian, and I'd say things are
| working pretty well there.
| danans wrote:
| > Personally I think the category "employee" should be
| forbidden. It is a pure social construct.
|
| Don't know where you are, but in the US, the category of
| employee has different tax implications for both the
| individual and the employer. In addition, depending on
| the industry and role, employee status is often
| correlated with significantly better benefits.
| antisoeu wrote:
| It's still a social construct - all the laws, even
| nations, are social constructs. I'm saying there should
| be no special benefits for employees.
| arcticbull wrote:
| And I'm saying there should be no special benefits to
| management :)
| antisoeu wrote:
| There aren't any.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Can managers not fire people?
| nec4b wrote:
| Can you fire your plumber, dentist, lawyer,...?
| [deleted]
| tengbretson wrote:
| A manager can terminate a work contract. In most parts of
| the world, the worker on the other side of this contract
| also has that same ability to terminate the work
| contract, so I'm not sure if I would consider that a
| "special benefit."
| danans wrote:
| > It's still a social construct - all the laws, even
| nations, are social constructs.
|
| So? Social constructs have a lot of teeth in the real
| world, and always have. Wishing them away won't have any
| effect.
|
| > I'm saying there should be no special benefits for
| employees
|
| So are you arguing that those benefits (i.e. health
| insurance) should be universal? Or are you making the
| argument that only those in a position to pay should have
| access to those things?
| antisoeu wrote:
| "Wishing them away won't have any effect."
|
| Laws and social constructs can be changed.
|
| As for health insurance (as an example), how do you
| justify giving health insurance to employees, but not to
| other people, like self-employed people?
| arcticbull wrote:
| I don't which is why I support socialized single-payer
| medicine.
|
| However, to address your question more directly,
| contractors are employees as well. It's not the job
| site's responsibility to provide health insurance, it's
| their employers. Contractors still have employers, you
| know.
| danans wrote:
| > Contractors still have employers, you know.
|
| This is true for vendors, but direct 1099 contractors are
| self employed.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I would argue that they still have an employer,
| themselves, who is responsible for providing that health
| insurance.
| antisoeu wrote:
| That's nonsense.
|
| In your terms then, just let everybody be self-employed
| and contract them, rather than employ them. That's the
| same result I want, that people are responsible for
| themselves and making a contract with somebody to do some
| work for you doesn't come with any additional baggage.
| Just plain money for work.
| minimuffins wrote:
| > Everybody is an entrepreneur. If you have nothing, you
| sell your body and work hours. But that's just a contract
| like every other contract.
|
| This is a fake world. In the real world there is history,
| capital and labor, and politics which is an expression of
| the unavoidable, built-in antagonism between the two. We
| don't all own an equal share of the means of production
| and just sit around issuing contracts to each other all
| day.
|
| Do you understand that the econ 101 libertarian world of
| homo economicus rational agents is fake and we live
| instead in the real world with its institutions and
| conflicts?
| antisoeu wrote:
| Capital and labor is a fake distinction. Your
| body/capability to work is capital.
| minimuffins wrote:
| Your body/capability to work is labor.
|
| Property that you can use to produce value beyond itself
| through workers' labor is capital.
| antisoeu wrote:
| Again, it is a fake distinction.
|
| Suppose you had a robot. Would that robot be labor or
| capital? Assume the robot has the same capability for
| work as you.
|
| At the end of the day it is a machine, so "capital".
| Likewise you own your body, it is your capital.
| parasubvert wrote:
| Fewer people seem to be demanding democracy in
| government. ;)
|
| I am not OP, but I'd say the reason authority is
| acceptable in a managed organization (not necessarily for
| profit - any managed organization whether the military,
| or NGO, or business, or charity) is because it ultimately
| has a narrow function: either fulfilling a mission, or
| increasing the wealth producing capacity of the
| organization.
|
| Democracy at that granularity is somewhat irrelevant:
| either you're doing the things (objectively measured), or
| you are not. Voting doesn't lead to better policy
| decisions, just freer ones.
|
| Of course the best performing companies aren't managed in
| an "authoritarian" manner in the usual sense of strongman
| rule, because one person (or even a small group) doesn't
| have all the answers. Labor/management collaboration and
| recognition of the importance of human capital is
| essential. This is why management doesn't have as much
| power as it used to in modern industry: it is dependent
| on human capital retention in its labor force, which is
| very expensive to replace (far more than just skilled
| labor).
|
| Collective bargaining becomes less about power disparity
| (when labor can make as much money elsewhere and
| management needs labor more) and more about pressure on
| systematic policies that are difficult to change without
| sustained external pressure: pay disparity, bonuses to
| sexual harassers, etc.)
|
| At the bigger picture, life is a lot bigger than missions
| or profit, and democracy is essential. (Unless one's
| mission is to own the libs, then I guess democracy isn't
| so important)
| antisoeu wrote:
| As for democracy - because companies are somebody's
| property. Do you demand democracy in your home? That is,
| can I decide on a new wall color in your kitchen? I vote
| for you to paint your kitchen pink, how about that?
|
| Employees can also vote with their feet, if they don't
| like their bosses, they can leave.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > Employees can also vote with their feet, if they don't
| like their bosses, they can leave.
|
| That's an absurd take because your boss suffers no
| consequences and you do.
|
| It's not about fair, it's about exercising the power you
| have.
|
| Besides, each part of the country is someone's property,
| but government gives you a say anyways. I would counter
| that the equivalent would be saying "why should anyone
| vote? why bother changing things? if you don't like your
| country why don't you go find a different one." We don't
| tend to accept that argument in government, why accept it
| in private enterprise?
| antisoeu wrote:
| If your boss suffers no consequences if you leave, then
| your job is superfluous and you should leave, or your
| boss should be allowed to fire you.
|
| Exercising one's power - sure, employees can do that, and
| I support that. I just don't think they should deserve
| special protections and rights for doing that.
|
| If I had an employee and they would tell me "I think your
| management is shit and I want to make the rules now", I
| would like to be allowed to fire them.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I didn't say they shouldn't be allowed to fire me, I
| didn't mean to imply that they would suffer no
| consequences however the consequences of 100% of my
| income is way smaller than whatever tiny fraction I make
| up of a 50,000 person company.
|
| Did you consider your management may be shit and maybe
| the person should make the rules now, not you? If you
| were harassing them, for instance, or bullying them, they
| may have a point and your single point of control over
| the enterprise may be harmful not just to the worker but
| to the company.
|
| Just because you would _like_ to fire them doesn 't mean
| you should, as after all, the fiduciary duty is to the
| company and not to you personally.
|
| That is specifically the value that the union would
| provide in this case.
| antisoeu wrote:
| Sure, management can be shit, but then the company should
| simply go to ruins. Likewise, employee decisions can be
| bad, too. It's mostly magical thinking to assume with
| unionized employees there will be better decision making.
|
| If I had a company, I would like to have the right to
| make bad decisions. And who defines good and bad
| decisions.
|
| With unions, in the end you have courts decide on
| economic decisions. That's bullshit.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Fiduciary duty is to the business not to the leadership,
| and to replace bad management. An employee-backed check
| bolsters this fiduciary duty.
|
| > If I had a company, I would like to have the right to
| make bad decisions. And who defines good and bad
| decisions.
|
| Feel free to do that in a company of 1. As soon as your
| company exceeds 1 person, you lose the absolute right.
| You lose the right when your decisions impact the
| livelihood of those around you. It doesn't drop to zero
| instantly but it is attenuated as the company grows.
| antisoeu wrote:
| Why do I lose that right? Back to the example of your
| kitchen: you hire somebody to redo your kitchen. Why
| would they have a say in how you want to have your
| kitchen redone?
|
| If you work for a company and you feel they are making
| bad decisions and perhaps your job is in peril (because
| the company may go down), it is high time to look for a
| new job.
|
| And again, who then decides what is or is not a bad
| decision? Courts will get to decide on economic
| decisions. But lawyers have studied law, not economics.
| How does that make sense?
| arcticbull wrote:
| That should be pretty obvious to you.
|
| Someone you hire to redo your kitchen isn't employed by
| you, they're employed by their employer, where everything
| we talked about makes sense. That's why there's a
| distinction between an employer-employee relationship and
| a contracting relationship.
|
| They of course get a say in how your kitchen is done: if
| it's not up to code, or dangerous, they absolutely have a
| say. And frequently. When I redid my kitchen my GC
| pointed out all these things to me and modified I my
| plans.
|
| > If you work for a company and you feel they are making
| bad decisions and perhaps your job is in peril (because
| the company may go down), it is high time to look for a
| new job.
|
| You're re-stating how it is today, but there's no reason
| it need to be this way, and it fails to meet the
| fiduciary duty to the company and its shareholders.
|
| > And again, who then decides what is or is not a bad
| decision? Courts will get to decide on economic
| decisions. But lawyers have studied law, not economics.
| How does that make sense?
|
| You don't need a law degree to know harassment is wrong.
| In fact mandatory training is part of your, wait for it,
| fiduciary duty. You don't need a degree to recognize bad
| management.
| antisoeu wrote:
| Somebody doing your kitchen doesn't have to be employed
| by somebody else. They can simply have a contract with
| you. You pay them x in exchange for them going y in your
| kitchen.
|
| Of course they can have opinions or refuse to do things
| in certain ways. But they can't force you to have a pink
| wall color, or other things. At most, perhaps if the see
| something dangerous or illegal in your kitchen, they may
| have a duty to do something about it.
|
| Likewise, an employee can refuse to do things by simply
| quitting the job.
|
| Harassment: again, quit your job, apart from that,
| general laws about harassment should apply, independent
| from you being an employee or not.
|
| "fiduciary duty" - where does that come from? Why does
| somebody suddenly have a duty to take care of you? I am
| self employed. Why do you get people to have the duty to
| take care of you, but I don't? Who should have the duty
| to take care of me?
|
| Suppose you pay me to renovate your kitchen.
|
| Now what is your duty towards me? Is it now your duty to
| see that I earn a living wage and have job security
| forever? All just because you simply wanted a new wall
| color in your kitchen?
| arcticbull wrote:
| Their employer isn't you, it's themselves. You have hired
| them in their sole proprietorship capacity.
|
| > Of course they can have opinions or refuse to do things
| in certain ways. But they can't force you to have a pink
| wall color, or other things. At most, perhaps if the see
| something dangerous or illegal in your kitchen, they may
| have a duty to do something about it.
|
| You're not their employer, you're contracting their
| employer.
|
| > Harassment: again, quit your job, apart from that,
| general laws about harassment should apply, independent
| from you being an employee or not.
|
| No thanks, that's an objectively worse world.
|
| > Why do you get people to have the duty to take care of
| you, but I don't? Who should have the duty to take care
| of me?
|
| Because that's what running a business is. Since you're
| self employed you have that responsibility to look after
| yourself.
|
| > Now what is your duty towards me? Is it now your duty
| to see that I earn a living wage and have job security
| forever? All just because you simply wanted a new wall
| color in your kitchen?
|
| Nope, that's their employers duty.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Employee decisions aren't necessarily right, but who's to
| say that management should deserve unilateral power to
| make their decisions with _maybe_ the board reining it
| in. And in tech specifically, we 've been seeing more
| companies where the founders/existing leadership retains
| enough of a share that they can ignore the board, never
| mind their employees.
|
| Unilateral control over a business's destiny can doom it
| if the leadership is making poor decisions even when the
| rank-and-file oppose them. It's all easy to say the
| company should simply go to ruins but why should it? What
| if the good or service is solid, should the customers and
| the market suffer because the failing company has
| deprived them of it? Should the workers be punished
| because they had insufficient leverage to oppose those
| decisions? Should a ton of money and effort be wasted for
| an apparently pointless enterprise? If we live in a
| society that seeks to maximize life expectancy, and if
| corporations are people, why should we not seek also to
| prevent avoidable business failures, at least for those
| enterprises that are building useful products?
| Simulacra wrote:
| I think you misunderstand the power of a union at Google.
| If management says no, what are they going to do? Strike?
| I mean ..hundreds of them, will have zero effect. This
| Union is nothing more than a paper dragon. Democracy
| works in government but in a company that you don't own,
| why do you think you deserve to make any of the
| decisions? As Obama said "you didn't build that" and yet
| you want to feed at the trough.
| arcticbull wrote:
| It's not about deserve, it's about exercising the power
| your actually have. Management doesn't do any of the
| typing. I stop typing they're gonna have to replace me. I
| guess my retort would be why shouldn't I exercise the
| power I have? It's not about fair, it's about boots on
| the ground.
|
| Replacing your workforce is much harder than you make it
| out to be. All the institutional knowledge, the entire
| stack, how things fit together, how the tools are built,
| run, used. All that leaves with you.
|
| You are likely right that this union, at this juncture
| doesn't have much say. I'm speaking more about unions in
| general, and this does feel like the thin edge.
|
| IMO this isn't the highest value proposition place to
| unionize, that would be video games.
| minimuffins wrote:
| > why shouldn't I exercise the power I have?
|
| Absolutely correct.
|
| This is an IS/OUGHT distinction. Who cares what labor
| "should" do under the employer's ideology. Not too
| surprising they want us to think of ourselves as equal
| players making fair contracts with each other, while one
| side holds the entire world in their hands.
|
| Since we're not out in the streets starving we're
| supposed to shut up and be thankful, no matter what,
| because the ruling ideology says they've given us enough
| (money as a wage, though little other power). All the
| crying about "contracts," "greed," "entitlement," etc is
| just pure ideological smokescreen trying to get you not
| to notice the obvious, fundamental conflict between
| worker and owner. They want us to look at a long running
| historic power struggle and see something other than a
| power struggle so we won't fight for ourselves.
| Ridiculous.
| vladTheInhaler wrote:
| Why do you think _you_ deserve to make any decisions?
| What makes you special? Absolutely nothing. But in a
| million tiny ways, you still try to have your say in the
| world, as much as you can. Even this comment is an
| attempt to spread your ideas to others, and make the
| world reflect your thinking just a little bit more. And
| that 's perfectly natural. But don't be surprised when
| others do the same.
| silverlake wrote:
| Governments take a % of my income. Democracy gives me a
| voice in how that pool of stolen money is spent.
| Businesses are private property owned by the
| shareholders. They can run their biz anyway they see fit,
| within community standards. I.e. no slavery or child
| labor, reduced pollution, contracts are binding, etc.
|
| Unions are to protect the interests of employees that
| have no bargaining power. Big tech employees don't need
| this. I can, however, see tech employees using their
| shares and influence to bargain for a board seat. I think
| Germany does this.
|
| Ultimately it comes down to the relationship white-collar
| employees have with their employer. I work at a Big Tech
| co. I see myself as a hired-gun who is full-time because
| the taxes and benefits are easier to manage. I don't care
| one bit about the company's mission or values or
| whatever. I write code, they give me money. Either one of
| us can dissolve this contract anytime.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Not really - it's basically two sets of authoritarians
| deciding.
|
| For example, if we take this to it's logical conclusion
| and look a work culture where your co-workers decide how
| much you get paid, go look at Valve and see how that
| works out for them: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wire
| d.com/2013/07/wireduk-v...
|
| There's really no great solution to this problem as
| everyone wants more money. Either it's workers vs.
| management or workers vs. each other.
| [deleted]
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I wouldn't say that unionization of software engineers is
| a public good. It won't solve poverty or make the world a
| better place. It is a conflict between engineers and
| software executives to make money in the way that they
| want.
|
| I'd wager that most unionization supporters at Google
| also support high taxes, a social safety net, and
| widespread unionization so other laborers can capture
| more of their own output.
| rauhl wrote:
| > Google made something like 300,000 in profit per
| employee in 2019.
|
| Isn't this roughly the same order of magnitude as many
| Google developer salaries? If so, how much more expensive
| can any employee be before he is too expensive to employ?
| tempest_ wrote:
| That is profit, ie after the employee has been paid.
|
| So the answer is they can afford to pay 300,000 more
| before the employee is too expensive (based on this
| comment anyway)
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Well 299,999 :)
| jboy55 wrote:
| Its pretty much the same number. An L4 at Google makes
| $250k and an L5 makes 340k on average according to
| levels.fyi. My experience with countering Google offers
| would indicate these are a bit low.
|
| Edit: Then you have to factor in the free
| breakfast/lunch/dinner, buses, electric car parking and
| the fact all my Google friends seem to rarely work >
| 40hrs per week.
|
| That being said, all the 'grunt' work at Google is done
| by contractors, who are paid far less and while they get
| the free food they do without things like PTO and Sick
| time.
| danaris wrote:
| Since that's _profit_ , I would assume (based purely on
| the phrasing) that it's net of obligations like salaries.
| [deleted]
| jfim wrote:
| That's profit per employee, not revenue per employee.
| Revenue per employee is much larger, at least according
| to this website [0]:
|
| > Alphabet Inc's revenue per employee grew on trailing
| twelve months basis to a new company high of $ 2,143,353
|
| [0] https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-
| Employee.html
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Profit is after expenses, so employee can be $300k/yr
| more expensive before they are expensive to employ.
| minimuffins wrote:
| > Why shouldn't workers seek to capture as much of their
| labor as possible?
|
| Yes. This is the correct way to look at it.
|
| Another point I don't see so many people making here is
| it's about more than just raw compensation. A lot of
| people at Google don't like some of the things the
| company has sprawled out into doing now, e.g. war and
| surveillance tech.
|
| A union is about creating some collective agency so labor
| can get what it wants, instead of being led around by the
| nose all the time by managers and owners who are
| motivated only by profit (or are at least not obliged to
| consider any interest, economic or moral, that laborers
| might have).
|
| A union would give some strategic agency to labor--that
| is, the people who do all the work--at Google. If a
| majority does not want to make war robots anymore or
| whatever, they can assert their agency and get what they
| want, and stop making war robots or whatever.
| MetalGuru wrote:
| My friend just moved to Germany. They make WAY less than SV
| engineers (working at the same company). Granted, they don't
| have to work 24 hour oncall shifts. I'm not saying the less
| wages is because of unions, just pointing it out.
| pelasaco wrote:
| > look at Germany where every industry has unions
|
| And the Companies in Germany pushes more and more the
| workforce to outside of Germany. The company that I work for
| has moving massively the workforce to Czech republic, China
| and since 2019, Bulgaria. I could imagine Google doing the
| same.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| U.S. has been outsourcing to cheaper countries for decades
| now, and while workers rights here aren't necessarily bad,
| unions have definitely been weak. As those countries are
| enriched and developed, eventually they will become more
| expensive for production, and might have their own stronger
| labor organizations as well. And then the cycle will
| continue until eventually you run out of countries/labor
| markets.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25635380
| caseysoftware wrote:
| > _Why shouldn 't employees expect, and get, better working
| conditions?_
|
| Are employees complaining/concerned about working conditions
| here?
|
| I'm trying to imagine how Google would be a terrible or
| dangerous place to work.. especially after working from home
| for ~10 months now.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Most union power comes from solidarity. If the Google people
| feel they don't need unions, then all other lower unions are
| weaker. The power comes from the industry wide union. People
| at small startups can stand up for something because even the
| Google people stand up for it. Otherwise we're divided and
| carry out the dog eat dog world.
|
| Edit:
|
| To all the skeptics, look, out of all the thousands of tech
| companies, how but one of you just try it. Can we just try
| it? Like, all of you join it, and just try it out, so we can
| actually have one real world example to discuss in this
| fantasy 'to union or not to union' debate.
|
| I'd like to at least see one attempt, one example, that way
| we can all point to and say 'oh shit, google sucks now', or
| 'oh wait, it's still a multi billion dollar company and the
| world didn't end, here are the pros and cons and the overall
| conclusion'.
|
| We can't even do that because the damn thing doesn't even
| really exist for any of us. This actually working out means
| it spreads industry wide, the implications are bigger. So
| could we try it? Just try, nothing more. Please? Pretty
| please?
| lawnchair_larry wrote:
| Why would you even want to try it? Have you personally been
| abused in some way that you think a union would have
| prevented?
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Yes. I've worked at places that don't give a 401k, only
| 2-3 days off including the federal holidays, I've worked
| at places that don't extend any benefits to part-time
| workers that reach into the 30 hour range (multi year
| workers), I've seen corporations relegate workers to temp
| status via actual legislation (Uber/lyft), I read the
| history of human-kind of labor abuse. And this is what
| I've seen as a 'knowledge' worker, and was raised by blue
| collar workers that have seen much more.
|
| I wanted to be civil, but I just have to ask, are you
| fucking stupid or something?
| petre wrote:
| I am not against unionizing. But Hollywood's unions did not
| stop sexual harassement, in fact we've seen it was the norm
| with several names in the industry recently convicted for
| sexual harassement, assault and even rape.
| toper-centage wrote:
| For a recent example on why tech needs unions, look up N26
| (German modern Bank) and their employees attempts at creating
| a Works Council. The way management handled it was nothing
| less than despicable, including filing 2 restraining orders
| against 2 of their organizers, and reporting them to the
| police because of health (covid) concerns (the police came,
| everything was safe and in order, then left).
| https://www.worker26.com/
| lawnchair_larry wrote:
| In no way is this relevant to anything related to American
| tech companies. I don't know how the plight of German bank
| employees suggests anything one eay or another about the
| need for tech unions.
| gandutraveler wrote:
| Unions will only help the rest & vest culture. I worked at
| Google and trust me there is so much fat that can be trimmed
| there. Especially the ones who have been there for 7+ years..
|
| With unions it will get harder to fire them and at the same
| time they will need to be compensated equally.
|
| Software is not a profession where output is proportional to
| work hours like blue collar jobs. This will demoralize
| engineers to work smarter & harder.
| erk__ wrote:
| Do you have any sources that support that from the
| countries that have unions for software development.
| Because that is something I would be very interested in
| reading.
| delfinom wrote:
| On the other hand, it may potentially "kickstart
| innovation". The driven engineers will be more likely to
| flee to smaller companies where they can work their magic.
| esc_colon_q wrote:
| Yeah, _so_ much of Google 's culture is already about
| slowing down work so that it takes 10 (5 eng ICs + lead,
| analyst, manager, PM and PgM) to do the work that 2
| engineers would do with identical quality in any other
| company, and the old-timers are the absolute worst in terms
| of keeping that status quo in place. I can't recall seeing
| a single team there that was properly sized and wouldn't
| function better with half the team and an eighth of the
| process.
|
| There's a good argument to be made that a big chunk of the
| value of an engineer to Google is strategic, simply that
| they are locked up and aren't working at FB, Amazon, Apple
| or Microsoft. I was never at a high enough level to have a
| view into the data that would confirm that, but it
| certainly felt like even if you weren't particularly
| productive in the environment everyone up the ladder was
| perfectly happy to let you malinger on the payroll forever,
| as long as you weren't so bad that you did damage to
| someone's pristine art project of a codebase. So maybe
| inability to fire isn't really such an issue - even now,
| seeing anyone fired at Google, let alone an old timer, is
| extraordinarily rare.
| sjg007 wrote:
| One day you will be the old timer that the young are
| trying to eat.
| acdha wrote:
| > This will demoralize engineers to work smarter & harder.
|
| This is, of course, why Germany is famously an engineering
| wasteland with no notable impact on the global economy.
|
| In reality, it all comes down to contracts: union employees
| can have performance incentives just like everyone else.
| The primary difference is that they're above board and
| consistent because they come from a legal agreement rather
| than private negotiations between individuals and
| companies.
| delfinom wrote:
| Germany's concept of unions are far better than the
| American model that just ends up controlled by mafia
| families (they still are in NY) or union administration
| that pad their salaries because the way unions are
| structured and protected by the NRLB basically encourages
| hostile centralization.
| cmarschner wrote:
| >This is, of course, why Germany is famously an
| engineering wasteland with no notable impact on the
| global economy.
|
| I suppose you're only referring to _software
| engineering_?
|
| Because in traditional engineering Germany is a
| powerhouse, with countless market leaders in their
| individual niches, plus the ubiquitous car and machinery
| industries.
| acdha wrote:
| I was being sarcastic -- Germany's union system is an
| existence proof that the claims made about unions in the
| U.S., to the extent that they're even true here, are
| artifacts of a bad system rather than inherent to the
| concept.
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| > This is just a mis-conception, look at Germany where every
| industry has unions, regardless of size, and unions has a say
| in how companies are run, and what direction they head in.
| They make sure that shareholders and employees get input into
| the highest levels of leadership, ensuring that shareholders
| can't force decisions that benefit shareholders at the
| detriment of employees.
|
| Well, well... Germany it's far from being true unions
| working. They are more like "labor rights consultant
| company".
| briandear wrote:
| What's the pay for a software engineer in Germany? Compared
| to the US?
|
| Citing German unionization as support for unions doesn't help
| your case.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Aren't most employees also shareholders, in the tech
| industry? Don't we have representation through that mechanism
| and why isn't it enough?
| CydeWeys wrote:
| The total percentage of actual vested shares that are held
| by the rank-and-file workers is minuscule at best.
| avianlyric wrote:
| Not sure who told you that. Most employees with either have
| options (which can become shares, but aren't) or Restricted
| Stock Units (RSU's) which are useless till vested.
|
| Either way their holding will be miniscule, even in
| aggregate, compared to other shareholders. Even if it
| wasn't miniscule, they would still need to organise, maybe
| form some sort of coalition, or "union", in order to
| leverage their collective voting power against other large,
| unified, shareholders.
| eropple wrote:
| Google gives out Class C stock options to (most) employees,
| so even when they vest they can't vote. They're certainly
| not alone in that. So, no, probably not?
|
| Even were they, the voting capability of such a share is
| ineffectually small; this is the "why you can just not
| spend money at MegaMart if you care _so much_ " [because
| singular action doesn't work but we can make it sound just
| viable enough that you go away] argument tilted a little.
| tjpnz wrote:
| That sounds more like a cooperative. Outside those
| situations stock ownership means very little for rank and
| file employees.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Especially with the multi class share structure with
| different voting rights.
|
| And talking of employees shares lobbying for changes to
| the taxation of those to make it fairer would be an good
| thing for unions to lobby for
| KaiserPro wrote:
| a Union is about rights, they _should_ provide an extra safety
| net should your employer put you in a bad position. It means
| that its much harder to divide and conquer employees
|
| A moderately well run union is useful for the employer as a way
| to consult, defuse and get sentiment for changes.
|
| Unions have nothing to do with employability, its about making
| the conditions better for the workers, and not because that's
| what other companies do.
|
| Employees leaving doesn't mean the place changes, especially if
| there is a limitless supply of keen, naive and cheap labour out
| there. The VFX industry is a prime example of this.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I am a former film industry worker and former member of Local
| 600 Cinematographers Guild.
|
| You have two incorrect assumptions here:
|
| 1. Non-union filmmaking is absolutely a common thing. Most crew
| members start their careers on nonunion shoots. Further, not
| all filmmaking related unions prevent their members from
| participating in non-union shoots (though some do and others
| will encourage you to call the shoot in if the budget is high
| enough to justify union participation).
|
| 2. Most crew on a film are not working for a specific employer
| on an ongoing basis. Generally, crew are hired on a contract
| basis for individual projects.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| >Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't have
| a marketplace of options as there is a single or just a few
| employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns,
| hospital staff, etc.). Unionizing at Google makes no sense, as
| there are thousands of tech companies hiring engineers in the
| valley -- engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by
| simply leaving and working somewhere "better".
|
| I feel like this is only half of the truth. They also help
| employees increase negotiating power as a counter to employers
| working together to increase their negotiating power (colluding
| on wages).
|
| >The reality is that Google is an easy place to work relative
| to how much people get paid. People don't want to leave a cushy
| job for one where they would have to work harder for their
| money, so instead, they are trying other means to have their
| cake and eat it too.
|
| If by taking some action they get a bigger slice of cake, why
| shouldn't they take that action? Our economy is built off the
| idea of rational actors acting in their own self interest, so
| doing something to get you a bigger slice of cake at a lower
| (or equal) price fits the expected behavior of actors in such a
| system.
| humanrebar wrote:
| > Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't
| have a marketplace of options...
|
| I'm not sure the cause and effect work that way, at least not
| entirely.
|
| Unions do restrain roles of workers and structure compensation
| to particular patterns. It seems plausible to me that those
| sorts of restrictions are in some ways detrimental to companies
| that wish to (or need to) disrupt incumbents. It's plausible
| that they function as a sort of regulatory capture. In some
| cases, as with unions of government workers, literal regulator
| capture enters the picture too.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Not really for M&P managerial and professional, SAG doesn't
| limit what say George Clooney gets for a film for example.
| humanrebar wrote:
| It limits pay scales, how credit is given, and what Clooney
| can do as a producer to get his film made.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Wow, you are excluding a LOT of workers in your statements
| here. Most people who work at Google, even the tech-focused
| ones, are not the type of full-time high-demand engineers who
| can get a new job at the drop of a hat.
|
| But I'm not sure what that has to do with the question anyway.
| Unions aren't "intended" only for certain industries or market
| conditions. They are a means of balancing the power difference
| between workers and employers. And we see evidence every day
| that Google and most other large tech employers in the area are
| abusing the power they have over their workers on a regular
| basis. "Just get a new job" is not a solution for the vast
| majority of people who work at Google et al.
| egypturnash wrote:
| I have friends who are in the animation industry (which has
| been heavily unionized since the 50s) and they tell me the
| Union is _constantly_ fighting with the studios over the
| studios trying to get more work out of them for less money.
|
| I have friends in the visual effects industry (which has never
| been unionized) and their lives are full of stuff like effects
| houses that did work on award-winning films with huge budgets
| closing up without paying people because the studio skipped out
| on payments.
|
| These are very similar fields in terms of skills. Both are
| mostly based in the same place. Both involve a lot of long
| hours working on stuff that flashes by in seconds. One has a
| union, one doesn't. One is better off than the other.
| dagmx wrote:
| Minor nitpick...the animation industry is only really
| unionized in LA. Outside of LA, the animation union dwindles
| dramatically and is close to non existent.
|
| For example, Titmouse was the first studio in Canada to
| unionize and that was just in mid 2020.
|
| The Bay area studios like Pixar aren't unionized either, even
| though their sister studio WDAS in LA is unionized.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Ooh, good point. I've heard some of the Asian animation
| industry is _super_ bad about burning people out in just a
| few years.
| dang wrote:
| This comment is a reply to
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25630456 but I've lifted
| it to the top level in a feeble effort to reduce the steam
| coming out of our server.
| Forge36 wrote:
| https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/google-workers-demanding...
|
| Union's official announcement
| crisdux wrote:
| After reading the NYT article and browsing their website - they
| seem to be mainly concerned with getting the company to bend to
| various social justice causes and getting the company to adopt
| politically motivated strategy changes. So I'm a bit confused.
| This doesn't seem like the purpose of a labor union in the
| traditional sense. What am I missing here?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Nothing really, it just looks like a way to create a formal
| progressive institution within Google using existing legal
| frameworks.
| mondoshawan wrote:
| Googler here, these articles are literally the first I've heard
| of it. No internal emails, rabblerousing, or any kind of comms
| about it, and it seems as though the union discussed doesn't
| actually exist yet. Seems a bit odd (and bad reporting), but
| we'll see where it goes.
|
| After watching how a mechanics union did absolutely nothing while
| CEOs ripped apart my Dad's pension and put him through hell, I
| have a bit of a dim view on this sort of thing to begin with.
| giantg2 wrote:
| That pension thing probably isn't the union's fault. Pretty
| much anyone that had a non-government backed pension lost it or
| had it severely reduced. They simply were not financially
| sustainable. But I do agree they sometimes the union can be
| their own worst enemy. For example, I knew a sterl plant
| manager and he was telling me that they had a hard time
| competing with imported steel and that the union was constantly
| asking for more and more money and time off. Eventually
| management was forced to give them everything they wanted
| dispite explaining that it would bankrupt the company.
|
| Overall, I think unions can be good. I would like an actual
| contract and no forced arbitration.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > After watching how a mechanics union did absolutely nothing
| while CEOs ripped apart my Dad's pension and put him through
| hell, I have a bit of a dim view on this sort of thing to begin
| with.
|
| I would say that unions aren't magical entities. They're a
| necessary but not a sufficient condition for protecting the
| interests of workers. A union is only as good as its
| membership. If union members think they can just pay their
| union dues and expect the benefits to magically accrue, that's
| not going to happen. Union members have to take a very active
| part in governance of their union, and immediately remove any
| union leaders who start to show signs of corruption.
| Complacency is the enemy. As soon as unions become
| "hierarchical", it's game over, and the union is no better than
| the management it was designed to fight against.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Necessary _in some cases_. Workers who are happy with the
| general conditions of their company won 't unionize.
|
| > _As soon as unions become "hierarchical",_
|
| Which is a probability that approaches 1 over time. All human
| endeavors tend toward hierarchies, it's just a matter of how
| formalized the hierarchy is and how many levels it has - but
| one always exists.
| coldtortuga wrote:
| Here's their website: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/ It's
| hard to find in Google searches buried under all the news
| articles.
|
| Does the Google Walkout count as rabblerousing? It's all been
| word-of-mouth until now, which is kinda slow since everyone
| left the office and went online.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Part of the reason for this may be because Google in fact
| pushed the NLRB to disallow organizing activity on internal
| emails! https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/18/21028033/google-
| labor-bo...
| mondoshawan wrote:
| Aha! Wasn't aware of this rule change. Wonder how they'll
| garner the votes they need to fully form the union without
| internal rabblerousing digitally, and with offices being
| closed.
|
| Is it legal for a union to use employee info directories to
| contact employees outside of corp comms?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I've rarely found an employee directory that would contain
| people's personal email addresses. They might be stuck with
| calling people on the phone or something.
|
| Which might be for the best: Google controls probably
| nearly every employee's personal email address too!
| [deleted]
| londons_explore wrote:
| A good chunk of Google employees don't have a 'personal'
| phone. They use test android devices, or work-provided
| phones and plans. Google even has an internal program to
| migrate your personal phone number onto a corporate
| device.
|
| Calls between employees will be video conferences over
| google servers anyway - nobody goes typing old fashioned
| phone numbers anymore...
| wasdfff wrote:
| Why would you ever want to migrate your personal line to
| a work owned device?
| londons_explore wrote:
| So you don't have to carry two devices with you.
| Especially relevant for people who need to be contactable
| outside regular hours.
|
| Also means work pays for the device, gives you a new one
| every year, and pays for and organises the data plan
| including worldwide roaming.
|
| If you break it, they give you a new one in 5 minutes
| rather than haggling with an insurance company taking
| weeks...
|
| It's a pretty sweet deal _if_ you trust your employer.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| And with the lack of this union's formal status, Google
| probably could get away with behaviors which interfere
| with the use of Gmail, Fi, Voice, and Meet services used
| to organize this union without significant penalty.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Not to put too fine a point on it, but usually the people who
| know about the union before it's announced are those who are
| understood to support the idea & are unlikely to go to
| management about it :)
| mondoshawan wrote:
| This is the first I've ever suggested an opinion on it
| publicly, and I'm a line engineer, not management.
| Internally, I don't usually talk about things like this,
| either.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Right, that's why the GP said that only those who were
| understood to already support the idea would have been
| approached about it.
|
| You're an unknown, and they didn't risk telling you and
| have it leak early.
|
| At least, that's the idea. Who knows how true any of this
| is yet.
| mondoshawan wrote:
| The parent comment originally was written in such a way
| as to imply I was management.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Not sure where you read that from my comment. Corps are
| filled with non-management workers who will tell
| management about unionization efforts, either naively or
| intentionally.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Ah, then it's likely that by chance someone just never got
| around to talking to you about it. It's a big company!
| Hopefully you'll soon get to talk to an organizer about
| your specific doubts.
| [deleted]
| giantg2 wrote:
| It might also be that the organizers where only talking
| to people that they expected to be pro-union (as opposed
| to selecting people who only had not expressed negative
| views of unions). This is the safer approach at union-
| hostile companies like Google.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Also Googler. When I previously worked at a unionized company
| the union actually helped a lot when our corporate overlords
| cut retirement benefits. For that sort of collective bargaining
| I think unions can be useful. It looks like this isn't that
| type of union however. This one seems much more like a
| political advocacy group (I realize all unions are political,
| but the idealized union is political as a side effect of
| improving the welfare of their constituency, not as their
| primary purpose).
| seibelj wrote:
| I know some Googlers who make over $500k annual and in truth are
| fairly unskilled. Not sure they could survive at any other
| company. Don't really see why they need a union to "protect" them
| from being fantastically wealthy?
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Well if the rest of the tech industry can copy faang Leetcode
| interviews, at the very least also start copying this union
| initiative. For once I'd like to see copy-cat culture not
| completely suck.
|
| No more of the silly fridge full of beers and ping pong tables,
| copy the real stuff please - salary, 20% time, union, and we'll
| study for your Leetcode, no problemo.
| andobando wrote:
| This is quoted form a different article, but am I the only one
| who sympathizes with this?
|
| >Everyone at Alphabet -- from bus drivers to programmers, from
| salespeople to janitors -- plays a critical part in developing
| our technology. But right now, a few wealthy executives define
| what the company produces and how its workers are treated. This
| isn't the company we want to work for. We care deeply about what
| we build and what it's used for. We are responsible for the
| technology we bring into the world. And we recognize that its
| implications reach far beyond the walls of Alphabet.
| fnovd wrote:
| The "few wealthy executives" are the ones ensuring that the
| work of the bus drivers, programmers, salespeople, and janitors
| is rewarded with cold, hard cash instead of empty promises and
| platitudes. How many $250k+ TC employees can be sustained by a
| company that refuses to do the "dirty work" of the DoD, that
| takes an ethical stance against the very anti-privacy
| technology that drives the profitability behind their inflated
| salaries?
|
| "Having your cake and eating it, too" barely fits here, it's
| more like showing up to a fancy steakhouse and demanding that
| their best cut stop coming from poor innocent cows. If you want
| to be a vegan, you're free to go do that; yelling at the evil
| chefs, butchers, and farmers to stop hurting cows while they
| prepare the sirloin you're paying them for is just absurd.
|
| If you want to work in a mission-focused environment, you can
| join the rest of us who took a pay cut to work on projects that
| let us go to sleep at night with that warm and fuzzy feeling.
| If you're not willing to give up the blood money, then it goes
| without saying that There Will Be Blood
| foxhop wrote:
| Could the Google workers help build a Union for all of tech?
| gcr wrote:
| At AWU, we've been working with CWA to do just that; see
| https://www.code-cwa.org
| ineedasername wrote:
| _" to opposing Project Maven, to protesting the egregious, multi-
| million dollar payouts that have been given to executives who've
| committed sexual harassment_
|
| I don't see how a union will help these issues. They may
| demonstrate the power of collective action, but not the utility
| of a union for these particular types of issues.
| vgeek wrote:
| https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-offer-415-million-to-...
|
| How soon everyone forgets. Google was caught red handed colluding
| with other companies to suppress employee wages in the past. This
| was still during their "Don't be evil." days, too.
| known wrote:
| Sounds rational till GOOGLE treats all its employees as PARTNERS
| baud147258 wrote:
| Where I live, unions just seem to protect un-productive employees
| (if they are union members of course) and slow down process by
| adding another layer of bureaucracy. But maybe it's different in
| the land of the free?
| fnord77 wrote:
| checks and balances against corporate power.
| marknutter wrote:
| > Everyone deserves a welcoming environment, free from
| harassment, bigotry, discrimination, and retaliation regardless
| of age, caste, class, country of origin, disability, gender race,
| religion, or sexual orientation.
|
| Until and unless they demonstrate that they intend to protect
| conservative employees, there's not a chance I would trust them
| to actually uphold this value.
| sidibe wrote:
| I think on the whole Google leadership is pretty representative
| of what Google employees want and the ones who want this union
| will be disappointed with what the union wants if they get enough
| people on board.
| sneak wrote:
| I don't disagree with this effort, but I'm a little surprised it
| wasn't one of the slightly more abusive/hardline of the FAANGM
| (that is, specifically Apple or Amazon, or perhaps Microsoft)
| staff first.
| pydry wrote:
| Their hands are somewhat tied in terms of how much they can
| retaliate legally.
|
| They likely won't take this sitting down, though.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Part of that abusiveness likely extends to union busting
| efforts.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Amazon anti-union video: https://youtu.be/AQeGBHxIyHw
| geraltofrivia wrote:
| Wow, what the fuck!
|
| "We're not anti union, but we are not neutral either"
| sethammons wrote:
| Obviously biased, but I tend to agree. My experience with
| unions is not with them as a partner to the company and
| advocate of shared success. My experience is them as
| parasites that hurt the business and the customer, and
| may (may!) help employees. Out of the dozen or so cases
| I'm familiar with, only my brother in law loves the union
| and he does not work like most devs I know; he goes job
| site to job site for short to medium engagements.
| virgilp wrote:
| It's almost as if they claim to be pro-union :D
| golemiprague wrote:
| Union is just another body to govern you, as if the company you
| work for is not enough. Just from the article I can see they
| support all kind of political agendas which me or others might
| not agree with. So no thanks, will rather deal directly with the
| company only, anyways at the end of the day the market forces
| dictate the conditions of a worker.
| piker wrote:
| Honest question: are there good examples of unionized companies
| that continue to innovate post unionization? Unionization seems
| at the surface like the end stage of disruptor where stakeholders
| begin jockeying for slices of a pie that now grows linearly.
| ekimekim wrote:
| Remember that correlation does not imply causation - even if
| it's true that innovative companies tend to not have unions, it
| might be (for example) because younger, smaller industries tend
| to be innovating faster and also haven't developed to the point
| of unionization yet.
| piker wrote:
| It was actually a question somewhat about correlation. I.e.,
| unionization is a symptom that signals the end stage, not
| something that causes it.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| The entire economy of Germany
| [deleted]
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Naver (the dominant search engine in South Korea) seems
| innovative to me. They successfully launched e-commerce project
| in 2018, which became #1 in 2019 beating the incumbent (which
| is owned by eBay). It's as if Google launched Amazon competitor
| and won within a year.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I would also like to know.
| tsjq wrote:
| Is this the beginning of the end of Google?
| visarga wrote:
| What, they run out of money?
| sparky_z wrote:
| I don't think that's the kind of "end" they mean.
|
| IBM and HP haven't run out of money either.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Haven't we been hearing about the beginning to the end for
| years now?
| jjcon wrote:
| Yeah and they've killed off dozens of projects, profits and
| revenue are down, innovation is long out the window and the
| quality of their products has gone to hell.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| I've never been in a union, but I have 2 strong impressions of
| them from friends.
|
| One friend was an electrician, he enjoyed working for a union
| because it gave him extra freedoms in his work.
|
| The second friends father worked in management for a mine that
| used union labor. They went through an ugly labor strike where
| their windows were shot out of their house and their lives felt
| threatened.
|
| I'm of mixed opinion, but the second scenario weighs heavily.
| wccrawford wrote:
| That certainly sucks, and I'm absolutely against violence in
| strikes. Of any kind.
|
| But have you considered that perhaps without the union, that
| strike would have been even worse? Those workers likely decided
| to do those things on their own, not with union involvement. If
| they'd been striking without a union to rein them in, things
| might have been worse.
|
| Of course, it's possible there would have been other problems,
| especially for the non-union workers.
|
| I'm fairly anti-union, but there are definitely times when I
| see them as a necessity. My working conditions are not such
| that I think a union is necessary or even desirable, but mine
| workers are one situation where I think that unions do their
| jobs.
| Jweb_Guru wrote:
| Mine workers are very frequently abused by management. Do you
| happen to have any links to stories covering that situation?
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| Everybody here seems to agree that unions have the potential to
| do good or bad. The next logical step to me is that there needs
| to be a selection mechanism in place.
|
| For companies, it's competition. If someone else does better, the
| consumer or worker can choose someone else. And we have anti-
| monopoly laws to make sure that someone else exists, to foster
| that competition and choice.
|
| Is there such a mechanism for unions? My ideal scenario wouldn't
| be me on my own as it is today. I'd want a handful of unions to
| pick from to represent me, not too differently from my choice of
| medical insurer. Five unions to represent 120,000 employees would
| still average 24,000 members each, so it's a huge step forward in
| collective bargaining. And then people can change unions if one
| of them ends up how folks are worried about in this and every
| other union thread.
|
| It seems like it would get at all sides of the issue. We'd get
| collective representation and a safeguard against the potential
| pitfalls.
|
| How could this scenario come about? Could it be something like
| medical insurance with an open enrollment season? There would
| need to be something akin to anti-competitive behavior built in,
| so you couldn't end up with an agreement saying you can only hire
| from our union. What else would it take?
| rzz3 wrote:
| If I didn't want to join the union, would I face consequences?
| madamelic wrote:
| Yes.
|
| You can't be employed by a unionized company if you aren't part
| of the union.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| That's not true? Depends on the union and the company and the
| location.
| apexalpha wrote:
| Good for them. I work for a large company and am a member of the
| union. While they're not perfect they're very constructive and
| provide a lot of benefits to all employees, and also to the
| company itself.
|
| Compensation has become very complex over the years. While most
| people understand their pay the rest is usually where employers
| cheap out, things like insurance, sick pay, long-term provider
| care, pension contribution, tend to be worse for my friends who
| also work in IT but in non-unionized workforce.
|
| I understand that in the US unions are often seen as a burden,
| rather than a constructive partner, so I hope this one will help
| to improve the image of all unions as well as improve live of
| Googlers.
| viraptor wrote:
| > I understand that in the US unions are often seen as a burden
|
| Some are, some the opposite. Often people discuss unions like
| something very homogenous. They're like companies - there will
| be both loan sharks and non-profit activists (and lots in
| between).
|
| I hope it all turns out well for googlers.
| [deleted]
| ATsch wrote:
| Of course, there is a difference, in that there's a strong
| financial interest in painting all unions as the loan shark
| type.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Unions have also been centers of corruption and organized
| crime. This is what gave them such a bad name in the 1980s
| and is why it's so easy to "tie" anyone in construction to
| the mob, such as one famous person in charge these days.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| The insinuation seems to be Trump. Sure, he has had
| buildings built/remodeled, but I don't see how you can say
| he is in construction.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Building industry / real estate is a "bit like that"
| unfortunately.
| madamelic wrote:
| His company is renovating buildings or building new ones,
| less frequently now.
|
| There are recordings of one of the mob bosses discussing
| Trump buildings and their concrete. The likelihood that
| Trump never spoke to a mob boss is just about 0%, either
| willfully or accidently. But judging from his behavior
| the last 4 years, there is a decent chance Trump knew and
| liked it.
| esoterica wrote:
| > pension contribution
|
| Pensions are horrifically anti-worker. You're basically
| withholding X% of someone's pay for 40 years, and also
| confiscating that pay if they don't stay at the same company
| until the pension vests (so people cannot leave without
| incurring a huge financial penalty even if they hate their job
| and can find better options elsewhere).
| theravengod wrote:
| WTH? Most people here don't know recent US history anymore ? Just
| look at what unions did to the people of Detroit ?
|
| Sure, on paper it seems like a good idea to fight the rich
| company to give employees a bigger share of the profit, but do
| remember: it's not the employee that decides how much profit is
| enough for the company to have. If the investors/CEO/boss doesn't
| feel the profit is enough, they/he/she can close the company.
| Unions always will protect the weaker worker (regardless of the
| domain) and subtract value form the better workers.
|
| If some employees don't like what Google is doing, they can
| protest (as they did). Also they can leave. Twisting the arm of
| the boss to give you more, when has that worked in the long run ?
| carabiner wrote:
| Amazing, the first page of these comments only has a single top
| level comment, with 550 replies. What is the typical distribution
| of comments on an HN post?
| snidane wrote:
| Coincidentally I was just watching these Yale lectures which
| touch on economical history of unions in the 20th century. Might
| be of interest to HN readers.
|
| https://youtu.be/q53DF6ySOZg - The Resurgent Right in the West
|
| https://youtu.be/T3-VlQu3iRM - Reorienting the Left: New
| Democrats, New Labour and Europe's Social Democrats
| maxehmookau wrote:
| Before US-based workers jump on this and start talking about how
| unions are a bad thing in general, remember to look to Europe.
|
| Trade unions are a huge part of the workforce culture here and
| are mostly a force for good.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I'm sure Europe would be happy to see US tech salaries and
| company growth stagnate a bit so they can catch up and stop
| losing good workers.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| In the UK we hear horror stories about French unions going so
| far as to literally kidnap management and hold them hostage,
| and in one case strip them naked and assault them with bed pans
| (?!).
| maxehmookau wrote:
| Yeah sure. But you can win any debate by picking the most
| insane examples of why something is bad.
| ur-whale wrote:
| >Trade unions are ... a force for good.
|
| As witnessed by how much Europe innovates in tech.
|
| lol.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| I could provide a list of European tech innovations over the
| last decade, but I sense you're not looking to engage in good
| faith.
| will4274 wrote:
| Sure, I'd be interested in your list of European tech
| companies that have innovated a comparable amount to
| Google. Whatcha got?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Saw this one the other day:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25605151
|
| There's also ASML, which was a focus of that thread's
| discussion.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| I'm not sure a monopoly like Google is something to
| aspire to. Europe is full of amazing copmanies doing
| innovative things. If Google is your ultimate measure of
| success though, you're right, my list won't keep up.
|
| Arm Ocado TransferWise Skype Nokia Skyscanner ASOS Klarna
| Spotify Deliveroo Rovio
| bane wrote:
| Most of the unions that we have here are public
| service/trades/transportation related and if I'm honest, the
| results have been very mixed. We used to have more manufacturing
| related unions, but with the direction manufacturing jobs have
| gone in the U.S. they're mostly just gone.
|
| The public service unions (e.g. firefighters, police etc.) seem
| to do a good job to protect their workers on one hand and keep
| them fairly paid and serviced, but on the other hand provide a
| powerful force to keep abusive police employed and fight things
| like police cameras and other actions that protect the
| population.
|
| The public transportation unions are widely seen as abject
| failures, providing protection for overpaid, highly
| underperforming, employees. There's been numerous investigations
| about failures in things like our local municipal rail systems
| and why they're such an abomination of service, and outside of
| funding issues, the fingers usually get pointed in the direction
| of essentially unfireable and frankly lazy employees.
|
| The trade unions seem to do a good job. Plumbers, electricians,
| etc. generally seem to be competent, and paid well, and have good
| relations between employers, customers, and workers.
|
| There's also a large number of public sector unions here. At one
| end the usual postal workers, teachers etc. and everything seems
| to run pretty well there. On the other end are the infuriating
| government maintenance/labor unions who won't let you move a
| waste bin to the other side of your desk without causing a
| problem.
|
| Despite all this, unions are not a major factor of life for most
| of the people in my area. I actually only know one or two people
| who're union members personally. Despite this, I live in one of
| the highest average income areas in the country. But I also
| recognize that for many people this environment prices them out
| of livable housing and food, and unions can help bolster their
| pay to make living in this area reasonable for them.
|
| I'm somewhat at a loss as to what better work conditions Google
| employees are looking for. They're among the most highly paid
| employees on the planet with absolutely incredible work
| conditions. If I had to wager, in exchange for whatever
| protections these employees are seeking, the tradeoff will be the
| erosion and removal of most of the perks that make Google a
| desirable place to work for. On the other hand, with Google
| leadership's behavior the last few years, they've kind of brought
| this on themselves so, small violins all around.
| klaudius wrote:
| I don't understand unions. If they don't like certain behaviors
| that are legal like selling to government or paying high
| salaries, why are they working there in the first place? Just
| quit. Different people like different things, so go work
| somewhere that suits you.
| andai wrote:
| The way I see it, if unions did nothing, Google and Amazon
| wouldn't be working so hard to prevent them from forming.
| zthrowaway wrote:
| Oh they do something, they help destroy a company's ability
| to compete. Take a look at unionization of the auto industry
| in Detroit back in the 70s and 80s which basically killed our
| lead in the industry and gave it to Japan and Korean
| companies on a platter.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Those Japanese and Korean companies were also unionized.
| Mighty strange how did they compete, right?
| sethammons wrote:
| It is as if you can't compare the two very different
| societies. I think it is better to keep US union talk
| focused on US unions.
| Jweb_Guru wrote:
| The auto industry was unionized _way before the 70s and
| 80s._ UAW was founded in 1935. What on earth are you
| talking about?
| IndPhysiker wrote:
| I believe the GP is referring to the rapid depression in
| the area when auto companies started moving south to
| open-shop states (e.g. Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky,
| Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee), not the original
| unionization.
| Jweb_Guru wrote:
| If a sector unionizes, and then forty years later jobs
| move away, blaming everything on the unionization does
| not make a whole lot of sense.
| claudeganon wrote:
| Most automotive workers in Japan are unionized, so that
| sounds more a problem with comparable executive decision
| making than anything to do with labor organizing.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I think they think unions would drag down productivity and
| cost money. I don't know if anyone actually believes unions
| do _nothing at all_ , neither good nor bad
| WitCanStain wrote:
| The point of unions is that individual workers can be easily
| screwed over with no repercussions for the company because of
| the power differential between companies and their workers.
| Unions seek to level the field a little bit by giving the
| workers collective bargaining power which allows them to secure
| better pay/benefits/influence the direction the company is
| going. When they work it is a very rational arrangement for the
| workers, so companies tend to not like them as it decreases
| their power over their workers.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Precisely, you can end up having people working for a company
| under terms that are technically legal, but still exploiting
| the weakest. The strongest people easily move on to better
| positions, but some, single parents, less skilled,
| psychologically weaker individuals and so on are more easily
| pressed into working conditions they may not like, because
| they fear losing the job they do have.
|
| In the US the minimum wage haven't moved in decades, at least
| not significantly. Denmark doesn't even have a minimum wage,
| yet people are better paid, that's due the Danish unions.
| Interestingly the Danish unions are actually oppose a minimum
| wage, because they believe it makes it easier to legally pay
| people less.
| throway1gjj wrote:
| LOL good riddance Google
| [deleted]
| throwaway7281 wrote:
| Good for them. I find it strange that we have this org setup at
| all. A union illustrates the clear divide between capital owners
| and workers. It sounds so 19th century, but it's just as valid
| today, unfortunately.
| throwmamatrain wrote:
| As the most spoiled class of workers to ever exist, it seems
| strange to want to unionize. I would think it sounds like
| inviting the vampire in (legal, HR, etc) without board
| representation of workers / codetermination similar to the German
| system. In America's way of doing things, I'm not sure if it's
| good. Would not look forward to "You have appropriate amount of
| non-union experience but you are 10th in line so we'll be calling
| you in 12 months, if we do." A theoretical for tech, not so for
| film unions which are being excitedly pointed to as good. It can
| take a very long time to get work under these schemes, which
| seems incompatible with how tech has worked.
| DonnyV wrote:
| I think a lot of the back and forth in this thread is dancing
| around the edges of a couple questions. Who really owns a
| company? I know legally who owns it. But a company is nothing
| without the people that work in it and who generate the ideas who
| keep it going. Shouldn't the majority of people in that company
| benefit and have a say how its run? Why should a handful of
| people who don't run the day to day operation or generate the
| majority of ideas, big and small get to own everyone else's ideas
| and benefit from them in perpetuity?
| jskell725 wrote:
| Because we chose to work for them instead of starting our own
| shops; and so to exchange complete ownership of our labor for a
| (often very nice) steady compensation.
|
| Note that this also applies to managers; up to and including
| the CEO. They might get paid more in Stock and less in cash;
| but they're usually not the Owners in and meaningful sense.
|
| I personally love the idea of workers cooperatives and do try
| to patronize such businesses as much as I can. But 1) it
| doesn't scale up and 2) when you're not in that model; you're
| not.
| DonnyV wrote:
| I think they scale up fine. Mondragon Corporation https://en.
| wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation#:~:text=....
| jskell725 wrote:
| Interesting and thank you! Perhaps this is a model which
| can be expanded in the future indeed... It's sort of a
| logical extension of startups which pay ISOs. With the
| obvious difference that the employee equity would be
| immediately realized; and come with corresponding votes.
| okprod wrote:
| This depends on the company, size, whether it's structured to
| give employees some sort of proportional, equitable ownership
| stake, etc.. There are scenarios where founders/owners put in
| 100% of the equity at the start and/or ongoing, and it may not
| make sense for workers who conduct operations to take on
| ownership stakes, especially if those workers are all part-time
| for example.
| marcinzm wrote:
| The workers do benefit, they get paid a salary and get RSUs
| (whose value increases with stock price). Very large amounts of
| both depending on the role by both US and world standards. If
| they want to then they can invest that income into company
| stock and become shareholders. Then they benefit in perpetuity
| based on how much they invested.
|
| edit: And this union includes part time cleaning staff which
| while vital to the functioning of a company hardly generate
| revolutionary ideas except in movies.
| kyrra wrote:
| A company is nothing without leadership. A company is nothing
| without the initial investors. A company is nothing without the
| it's initial idea.
|
| It takes a lot of people in different roles and a lot of
| different resources (be it people, money, opportunity) to make
| a company work.
|
| While there are successful employee-owned companies after, many
| companies today would not exist if you didn't have the
| motivation there for certain people. Do you think Tesla and
| SpaceX would exist if Elon had to give ownership to everyone
| else? You're not going to see certain kinds of risk-taking by
| employee-run groups, and that risk-taking tens to require
| people with top-down responsibility and vision to make them
| happen.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| You can have a thousand investors all chip in to build a
| factory, but without workers in that factory you have
| nothing. I'm not sure what this comment is trying to
| accomplish other than pointing out that the value of initial
| investment ultimately hinges on the ability to hire and
| retain workers, and ultimately the value of the labor
| produced by those workers. The workers have the power.
| herbstein wrote:
| In other words; throwing money at a tree doesn't turn it
| into a chair, and throwing money at a keyboard doesn't
| write code.
| nailer wrote:
| Direct link:
| https://alphabetworkersunion.org/press/releases/2021-01-04-c...
| SoSoRoCoCo wrote:
| I'm excited about this, but also dismayed at the huge amount of
| pushback from the tech community. Exploitation in tech is built
| into the culture: people worship the guy who never spends time
| with his family and works 100 hrs per week. Screaming managers
| are tolerated, even revered. Retaliation is commonplace and keeps
| people in line, and is justified as "s/he was just lazy" or "not
| a team player". This needs to end. Unions are a great first step.
| gipp wrote:
| Neither of those things apply to Google.
| jskell725 wrote:
| Perspective from one pushing-back tech worker:
|
| -Never seen a manager scream. Note that anyone who does so is
| bad at their job; and won't last long unless if anyone else
| wants it.
|
| -Workers commonly take multi-month parental leave breaks; block
| off afternoons for a kid's event, etc.
|
| -I don't know anyone who works 100 hours a week; and if I did I
| would think them a fool. And also help them; as this is unsafe
| and they need some more sleep!
|
| I understand that other gigs, especially perhaps in Gaming, are
| different! And workers of course have the right to freely
| associate, and so collectively bargain, if they choose to.
| mancerayder wrote:
| Two thoughts as I wake up to this:
|
| 1) "Arranged as a members-only union, the new organization won't
| seek collective bargaining rights to negotiate a new contract
| with the company"
|
| What use will that be, if they don't collectively bargain, as a,
| em, collective of employees? The next step would be to pressure
| everyone to join, or the whole thing won't be very effective.
|
| 2) If the thing were to work, then I'd expect the very next HN
| article to read:
|
| Alphabet Company Announces Move to __, TX.
| capableweb wrote:
| Contract bargaining for the members is not the only thing a
| union usually does. There are loads more to it, great starting
| point to learn more about unions would be to read through the
| Wikipedia page before dismissing the idea, here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union
|
| If it wasn't clear to people working at Google before, if the
| company moves somewhere in order to lessen the power of their
| employees, I sure hope the employees start waking up to how
| their company treats them. My guess is that Google doesn't want
| to actually show that face though, so unlikely to happen.
| mancerayder wrote:
| > There are loads more to it, great starting point to learn
| more about unions
|
| A great starting point to sound condescending, as well.
| capableweb wrote:
| Sorry, that was not my intention. My intention was to guide
| you to read more about the subject you're currently
| discussing, as your points make it pretty clear that the
| idea of what a union is, is much wider than what you think.
| ahelwer wrote:
| On a corp-cultural level it's interesting this is originating at
| Google, as opposed to say Amazon which is generally considered a
| more burnout-causing/crushing place to work on the engineering
| side in some teams. The Google employees I've talked to all
| seemed remarkably uncynical about their jobs, and still took a
| certain amount of pride in working at their company. I can
| contrast this with Amazon, Microsoft, and (to a lesser degree)
| Facebook employees who sort of hold their jobs at arm's length
| from themselves; not much of their identity is wrapped up in it.
| For union organization at higher payscales, maybe peoples' desire
| to better their workplace will only be effective if they care
| about their workplace to begin with.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Essentially the different is that Google is so incredibly culty
| that people refuse to leave even when they're grossly
| mistreated and the company does incredibly unethical things.
| Everyone in big tech has job mobility, so for someone to care
| to unionize, they have to _not want to leave_.
|
| So where in other tech companies, unhappy employees leave, at
| Google they try to "fix" it, which has led to these
| unionization type efforts, with wider goals around making the
| company behave.
|
| I absolutely think that the fact that many Googlers' primary
| social identity is that they're a Googler is why this is
| starting there and not another FAANG.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| > Everyone in big tech has job mobility,
|
| Except for immigrants pending green card/citizenship...
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| That is definitely true, and unfortunately tech companies
| have been abusing H-1B laws flagrantly in order to hire
| trapped workers they can underpay.
| (https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-accused-by-trump-
| administ... is particularly blatant.)
|
| That being said, without the employees who could leave, but
| choose not to, Google would not survive. Hiring underpaid
| immigrants can only get you so far.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| If the employees who could leave organize for the benefit
| of employees who can't, isn't that precisely unionizing?
| That's my jab here. I don't really know/care about how
| great certain employees have it, I care that several
| other employees are systematically abused and there's no
| check on their power.
| appleflaxen wrote:
| This is a great point / comparitor
| vitus wrote:
| The prevailing fixation seems to be on how unionization would
| help the highly-compensated engineers, when the people who need
| and would benefit most from unionization are the TVCs, who aren't
| considered Alphabet employees, don't get benefits, are regularly
| excluded (from all-hands, mailing lists, even affiliating with
| Google on LinkedIn).
|
| Suppose a barista's phone dies. Employees are not permitted by
| policy to chip in to buy a new one, per existing guidance, even
| if there are 100 people at the office all willing to chip in $10
| as gratitude for years of expertly-poured coffees.
|
| Don't get me wrong -- there's absolutely value in using a
| staffing agency to scale hiring of support staff to fit the needs
| of rapidly growing sites. But if you've been employing the same
| worker for 1, 2, even 5 years, why not convert them to employees?
| my_usernam3 wrote:
| I think thats because this unionization attempt is for the FTE
| to speak out over social justice causes and not face
| retaliation. Aka not about compensation.
|
| I do wish there was more focus around the contract employees,
| in fact I think this petition (or whatever its called where
| they all sign) is only for FTE.
| vitus wrote:
| From the article:
|
| "The Alphabet Workers Union will be open to all employees and
| contractors at Google's parent company."
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Unions would also add additional hurdles to young engineers
| looking to join or move up within the company.
|
| We like to think of unions as protecting members against the
| corporation, but traditionally unions also protect members
| against outsiders looking to take their jobs. In this case,
| those outsiders are young people breaking into the industry or
| trying to move up the ranks within Google. Before going all-in
| on unions, consider if you're ready to start making it harder
| for Googlers to get fired or make it more difficult for someone
| to get promoted based on their work rather than seniority
| (number of years worked).
|
| At this point it's not even clear what the union is demanding
| or what they expect to change. Google already has industry
| leading pay and benefits, as well as a reputation for some of
| the most reasonable working hours in the industry.
| vitus wrote:
| Are you not proving my point by bringing the conversation
| back to "how will unionization impact engineers"?
|
| > Before going all-in on unions, consider if you're ready to
| start making it harder for Googlers to get fired or make it
| more difficult for someone to get promoted based on their
| work rather than seniority (number of years worked).
|
| There _are_ issues around Google employees being terminated
| unfairly -- mostly around those who dare to speak out (most
| recently and notably, Dr. Gebru).
|
| While I do think that poor performers should be fired
| regardless of seniority, I also think that the current
| process for identifying and removing poor performers is both
| inefficient and, frankly, cruel.
|
| After receiving poor performance ratings, an engineer may
| have responsibilities slashed (thereby making it more
| difficult to demonstrate level-appropriate impact) and put
| onto a performance improvement plan (to demonstrate impact,
| but also siloed from the rest of the team). To add insult to
| injury, due to performance ratings, the engineer will have
| compensation slashed to effectively the salary band for a
| lower level. If the engineer does not meet the lofty goals by
| the end of the 3-month period, management may offer an
| ultimatum: take this severance package and voluntarily
| resign, or go through the review that you most likely will
| fail, and get nothing when you're fired.
|
| Meanwhile, it can take two performance cycles (i.e. a full
| year) to identify and remove poor performers, during which
| time said poor performer can drag down an entire team.
|
| It is already a meme at Google that the easiest way to
| achieve L+1 (i.e. get promoted) is to leave and re-apply at a
| higher level after a year or two at a different company.
| While I don't advocate promoting primarily based on
| seniority, I _do_ think Google does need to invest more on
| building up leadership by promoting from within, rather than
| encouraging people who want to break into senior leadership
| to leave Google.
| ecf wrote:
| > ... but traditionally unions also protect the members
| against outsiders looking to take their jobs.
|
| Hit the nail on the head. I've always heard horror stories
| about the police union advocating for literal murderers so
| those murderers can get another job where they can murder
| again.
|
| But then I joined my first startup and had to install another
| access point by simply running a 15 ft Ethernet cable through
| the paneled ceiling. A 15-30 minute job, tops.
|
| But the building had an exclusive contract with a unionized
| cabling company and I could get my startup evicted if I
| attempted the job myself. Instead, we had to pay this cabling
| company $4k and wait 2 weeks for them to come onsite.
|
| I'm sure there are good unions out there. But unions people
| have encounters with pretty much are all rotten.
| appleflaxen wrote:
| The recurring theme in the comments against unions can be
| captured by a simple truth: Unions don't protect your interests;
| they protect _their_ interests.
|
| Which is fundamentally true, and cannot be changed.
|
| So if your employment situation is so bad that you need a second,
| massively powerful, self-interested entity to negotiate with the
| massively powerful, self-interested entity in the hopes that your
| interests may happen to align then a union is the right choice.
|
| But if not, you are adding an order of magnitude of complexity to
| your political work environment (yuck) and will come to regret
| it.
|
| And if it comes to pass, it is absolutely critical to structure
| the union in such a way that the interests are aligned with the
| employee members.
| Bresenham wrote:
| > massively powerful, self-interested entity
|
| The difference is the union at some level ultimately has to
| answer to the workers who comprise the union, whereas the
| corporation is ultimately responsible to the majority
| stockholders who are expropriating surplus labor time from
| those working at corporations.
| nice_byte wrote:
| > the union at some level ultimately has to answer to the
| workers who comprise the union
|
| yes, and a democratic government has to "answer" to its
| people ostensibly. ask russians how it's going for them.
|
| unions are just another power structure adding on to the
| infinite pile of things that are constantly trying to fuck me
| over as an individual human being. no thanks.
| missedthecue wrote:
| What's the difference between exproprating labor time and
| compensating for labor time (in Google's case excessively
| well)
| Bresenham wrote:
| The difference is labor time compensated for is compensated
| for, labor time expropriated is not.
|
| Labor time compensated for by Google excessively well is
| also labor time where workers are producing wealth
| excessively well. Ken Thompson had a hand in creating an
| enormous amount of wealth before he stepped foot in Google.
| Where does all this created wealth come from? The work done
| by those who work and create wealth at Google (and the
| uncompensated primitive accumulation of web content - and
| the taxpayer funded grants to Stanford and for ARPAnet
| development etc.)
| dionidium wrote:
| One obvious way this manifests is in seniority-based provisions
| whereby union members demonstrate a preference for their own
| interests over the interests of future new hires.
| Siira wrote:
| Unions also fuck non-union members, which in turn creates a lot
| of economic deadweight and inefficiency.
| matsemann wrote:
| No, that's just normal anti-union-FUD. A union doesn't have
| to imply that it controls everything, or that everyone has to
| be part of the union to work somewhere.
|
| A union could also just be a large entity that collectively
| bargain on behalf of the workers, and can do so better than
| they could separately. Often that involves stuff like better
| safety, pay, getting rid of bad stuff like non-competes etc.
| And where I'm from those new things are enforced company
| wide, not just for the union. So every worker profits from
| the union, even non-union members.
|
| If anything, the non-union members are the deadweight where I
| live. They get the benefits, without paying any membership
| fee.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| It's not anti-union FUD. Unions killed housing bills in
| California this past year.
| bgorman wrote:
| This is not FUD, this is the rationale behind "right-to-
| work" laws.
|
| Unions want to represent every worker, because it gives
| them more power. This isn't a conspiracy theory, this is
| reality.
|
| Some workers do not want to be a part of the union, but in
| states without right-to-work laws, they can be compelled to
| be part of the union.
| musingsole wrote:
| >A union doesn't have to imply
|
| As there's no set definition that would capture every
| union/guild to have ever existed...a "union" doesn't imply
| a thing other than some collective decision making
| apparatus.
|
| However, turning from Plato to my good friend Aristotle,
| history shows that unions _tend_ to not notice non-members
| or - even worse - actively work against them. It 's not
| FUD; it's a pattern.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I made this point on HN before but I think it applies here.
|
| The world breaks out into two types of employers: those who try
| to hire outstanding people and go above and beyond for them, with
| the expectation that one of the attributes of these outstanding
| employees is that they likewise go above and beyond for the
| company. The alternative is employees who treat their employees
| like cattle and the employees treat the employer as a
| slaughterhouse.
|
| The first path is much preferable for everyone. The ideal
| situation (think marriage) is where either partner willingly goes
| above and beyond for the other.
|
| I am not sure the impact of this particular action, but it's
| movement in the direction of employees asserting they don't want
| to participate in such a relationship, instead resorting to the
| more common power struggle rather than a partnership.
|
| That's OK but taken to the extreme, there's no reason for them to
| expect the extraordinary treatment google has given them to
| continue, either.
| ruph123 wrote:
| What a naive world view is this to think that a large enough
| company goes "above and beyond" for their employees... As a
| German these American work ethics are so weird to me. You are
| being put on a stick and held over a bon fire and all you do is
| scream "turn me quicker"!
|
| What life is this to work your ass off for a company that
| demands crazy work hours, that can fire you for any reason with
| laughable notice period, gives you almost no vacation, no
| maternity leave and when you get sick, you lose your health
| insurance and end up on the streets. While the other survivors
| are celebrating their own luck.
|
| Such a depressing dystopia.
| finiteseries wrote:
| That doesn't describe even the most down on their luck FAANG
| engineer in the slightest, and the previous comment tried to
| make that obvious by defining two entirely separate sorts of
| employer relationships to consider.
|
| That you didn't address the second type of relationship,
| specifically brought your nationality in, and ended by
| calling _their_ nation a depressing dystopia brings this
| dangerously close into nationalist flamebait territory.
| ruph123 wrote:
| My point is: No publicly traded company goes "above and
| beyond" for their employees. They literally work for the
| interest of their shareholders. Individual workers' rights
| do not matter for them. And a high salary is not
| everything, especially since "high" in the SV is still
| pretty average at best. I now know of several high skilled
| engineers who worked at Apple and Facebook who came back
| because they were burned out and in two cases could not
| even afford their family anymore in the bay area (with both
| couples working as engineers).
|
| Your employer is not your friend who was kindly enough to
| take you in and spread your wings. And my point of bringing
| in Germany was this: The US labour laws are laughable, thus
| to make conditions better for workers they __have__ to
| unionize to put themselves in a stronger position.
|
| I did not address the second type because I think it is a
| false equivalence. There is never a balance between worker
| and employer. FAANG companies are the richest and most
| influential companies in the world, if you think that a
| union will topple this power distribution, you are really
| naive.
| xyzelement wrote:
| The experience of people you know flies directly in the
| face of my experience (not at FAANGs but similar caliber)
| and that of several hundreds of my friends and
| acquaintances who work at these companies.
|
| Whatever the exceptions are, if you work at these places,
| you're living a GREAT life in the grand scheme of things.
|
| Conversations about other employers not relevant.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Ask employees at Amazon, certain orgs at Apple, and
| Microsoft (at least pre-Nadella) how this always holds
| up. Ask workers at AAA gaming studios. It seems like in
| tech in exchange for high material compensation, the toll
| is sometimes high psychological and emotional pressure.
| xyzelement wrote:
| >> It seems like in tech in exchange for high material
| compensation, the toll is sometimes high psychological
| and emotional pressure.
|
| Hard things are hard. Building something complex in a
| competitive environment is going to feel difficult
| because it is. The company can make it more or less
| painful and the good ones do a good job, but there's no
| way around it.
|
| The alternative is not to do difficult things and thus
| have no pressure and no responsibility. By that
| definition, the homeless guy on the corner is the most
| relaxed person (and sometimes it's true, you see them
| chilled out, nobody depends on them and there's nothing
| for them to achieve) but if that resonates with you then
| you shouldn't be working at a company like that in the
| first place. Try working at the DMV instead - I am being
| a bit facetious but also serious, people chose their
| careers based in part of how much
| pressure/adventure/challenge they have an appetite for.
|
| There's no success without risk, hard work and pressure.
| The top companies give you a chance to go for such
| success, they can't change the laws of gravity and
| somehow enable you to change the world without breaking a
| sweat.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > The company can make it more or less painful and the
| good ones do a good job, but there's no way around it.
|
| Sure there is. There are corporate cultures that are
| needlessly toxic and abusive. Stack ranking at Microsoft
| was not necessary to their success. Uber's culture of
| harassment and unethical behavior was not necessary to
| their success. Amazon's burnout culture is not necessary
| to their success. AAA gaming death marches are not
| necessary to their success- or maybe it is to that
| industry, but they could at least pay overtime. Perhaps
| there are other companies that are better candidates for
| unionization than Google. But to pretend that every
| successful company's excesses and dark underbellies can
| be justified by "hard things are hard" is to excuse
| abuses and unprofessionalism that go unchecked. Because
| HR systems are insufficient, workers organize.
| cced wrote:
| It may not be typical of employees at FAANG companies but
| what OP mentions is far from unimaginable for many other
| non FAANG companies.
| xyzelement wrote:
| OK but we're talking specifically about Google so the
| non-FAANG is irrelevant. The whole point is the
| detrimental effect this will have on quality of life at a
| FAANG.
| xyzelement wrote:
| As the other comment points out, literally none of what you
| said applies to Google.
|
| Your logic is something like this: because someone somewhere
| is in a bad marriage, everyone including people in great
| marriages should treat their spouse like an adversary.
|
| My point is behaving like this will just ruin great
| marriages/employment relationships (obviously.)
|
| I don't know what you being German and being depressed about
| dystopias has to do with anything, people who work at FAANGs
| and that caliber companies are literally some of the most
| fortunate people on earth. That's why top engineers are way
| more interested in getting a job there than emigrating to
| Germany.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| > The first path [one of the attributes of these outstanding
| employees is that they likewise go above and beyond for the
| company] is much preferable for everyone.
|
| I don't think this view is as widely held as you might think.
| Or at least it depends on what you mean by going above and
| beyond. I want to be paid for a job, which I will do. I will do
| whatever needs to be done, including things outside my
| "official" duties, but when that clock hits 40 hours, it's time
| to stop working. Maybe that's going above and beyond or maybe
| not.
| glitchc wrote:
| Sounds like the tech industry needs a union rather than just
| Google employees.
| Ardur wrote:
| It is a bad idea to affiliate with CWA. If CWA was the origin, it
| is a terrible idea. Tech should be wary and look at what the
| automobile unions amounted to.
| clickness wrote:
| The union's official website: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/
| sz4kerto wrote:
| One difficulty I see with the mission statement
| (https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-statemen...)
| is that it is very broad, and contains a lot of progressive
| values that are likely not as widely shared as the authors might
| expect. One might or might not agree with these values, but it is
| going to be significantly harder to start steering the company's
| product direction and social responsibility efforts than 'just'
| representing the employees during e.g. benefits and compensation
| negotiations.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| I think you should point out what specifically is too broad?
| They are pretty banal points about fairness, ethics,
| environment, we know that Google employees are likely to push
| for a blue-ish agenda, and it's really not controversial imo.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Seems to me that the organizers are using a union to push their
| own personal agendas (which they otherwise don't have the power
| to push) which seems like the perfect way to form a corrupt
| union that harms workers.
| thebean11 wrote:
| What agendas would a union push, other than the personal
| agendas of its members?
| jskell725 wrote:
| As an outside observer, I'd expect a "union" to push an
| agenda of fair compensation for it's workers and an end to
| abusive practices from management. This "personal agenda",
| as you correctly term it, feels more like a political party
| than a workers' union.
| marcinzm wrote:
| The agenda of the workers (benefits, pay, working
| conditions, etc.) rather than the agenda of the
| organizers/leaders. If the workers want social issues as
| their agenda then that's fine but there should be a broad
| voting process for that rather than a dictatorial
| preemptive agenda. This just seems like a few dozen people
| trying to tell 100k what they should care about.
|
| edit: I don't think I've ever seen environmentalism come up
| as a desirable goal from proponents when people discussed
| tech unions. Pay, benefits, working conditions, abusive
| management and so on but environmentalism????
| capableweb wrote:
| What in the mission statement seems to be "personal agendas"
| to you?
|
| Here they are listed:
|
| - All Alphabet workers deserve a voice
|
| - Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving just
| outcomes
|
| - Everyone deserves a welcoming environment
|
| - All aspects of our work should be transparent
|
| - Our decisions are made democratically
|
| - We prioritize society and the environment
|
| - We stand in solidarity with workers and advocates
| everywhere
|
| Full statement:
| https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-
| statemen...
|
| All in all, seems to be good values to want to have in a
| workplace, especially such a global and pervasive one as
| Google. If all of these things were pushed for and
| implemented in Google, you think that would harm the workers?
| sz4kerto wrote:
| The 'personal agenda' refers to the fact that it is unclear
| whether these values represent the opinion of an
| overwhelming majority at Google.
|
| Some of these statements are _actually_ controversial.
| (Without saying whether I personally agree with them or not
| -- I am saying that they are far from being universally
| accepted.)
|
| Examples:
|
| > All aspects of our work should be transparent, including
| the freedom to decline to work on projects that don't align
| with our values.
|
| Not sure how the company should approach this exactly. I'll
| bring up some extreme (and maybe stupid) examples. Let's
| say Google wants to monetize the Google search page even
| more, while employees working in the UX team disagree with
| this direction. Should Google be able to let them go (in
| case there's no other UX role in the company) or not?
|
| > Our decisions are made democratically, not just by
| electing our leaders who set the agenda, but by actively
| and continuously listening to what workers believe is
| important.
|
| This approach of corporate decision making practically
| doesn't exist anywhere, and there's not much proof that
| it'd work, so I consider this controversial.
|
| > Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving
| just outcomes. We will prioritize the needs of the worst
| off. Neutrality never helps the victim.
|
| Google had a massive impact on the world by creating the
| search engine and broadening access to information to
| people around the world. Should it have other social
| missions as well? What should those be? What happens if the
| company's core mission (organizing the world's information)
| becomes at odds with other social mission(s)?
|
| Normally the leaders of the company are responsible for
| making decisions here.
|
| > Everyone deserves a welcoming environment
|
| I think this is something most people would agree with, if
| there weren't many examples of people abusing these
| policies.
|
| > We prioritize society and the environment instead of
| maximizing profits at all costs. We can make money without
| doing evil.
|
| Sure, no reason to not agree with this sentence. Question
| is: how is this actionable? Who is going to decide what's
| evil, what's worth it? By default the executives do, that's
| their job.
| hudsonjr wrote:
| > Democratic Decision Making I'd question whether it's
| wanting "democratic" decision making or if the group
| wants a great role in decision making, perhaps beyond
| that which it's numbers justify. I say this as I work at
| a place where topics for all-hands could be submitted and
| voted on. This seemed to work well until a topic was
| submitted and the downvote to upvote ratio was
| "disappointing" to the person/group that submitted. After
| this meeting, only upvotes were allowed on submissions.
| yanderekko wrote:
| If I were a Google employee with an active social media
| account that promoted conservative politics, this would be
| pretty alarming to me. It's similar to the CoC debates -
| the visionary goals foreshadow the darker enforcement
| strategies.
| capableweb wrote:
| Now I'm not super into US politics, partly because it's
| so polarized today, but which one of these values are
| against conservative ideals? Seems to be pretty basic
| human decency, like everyone deserves a voice, welcoming
| environment, decisions are made democratically and more.
| Are those really against conservative ideas?
|
| Edit: My comment seems to have spawned replies to
| unrelated subjects so I'll repeat the question hopefully
| a bit more clear: What of the values proposed so far in
| the "Google Union", goes against modern conservative
| values in the US today?
| yanderekko wrote:
| In practice, as we've seen numerous times with CoC
| squabbles, being known to harbor certain political
| attitudes that are well within the American Overton
| window will create allegations that you're make people
| feel unsafe.
|
| For example, if one posts "All Lives Matter" on social
| media they could easily fall afoul of a "welcoming
| environment" provision.
| gundmc wrote:
| What is CoC in this context? Code of conduct?
| inerte wrote:
| Democracy in the US is seen by some people as the rule of
| the majority, therefore infringes personal rights and
| freedom.
|
| Prioritizing the environment? Straight from the radical
| liberal left playbook. It means allowing my children die
| of hunger because I can't find a job so a dolphin
| survives.
| capableweb wrote:
| > Prioritizing the environment? Straight from the radical
| liberal left playbook. It means allowing my children die
| of hunger because I can't find a job so a dolphin
| survives.
|
| So if I understand what you're saying as a reply to my
| question, you mean that having "We prioritize society and
| the environment instead of maximizing profits at all
| costs" as a explicit value for the Google workplace,
| means that you'll end up without food for your child?
|
| Not sure when/how dolphins became Google's business, but
| I might have missed something recently as I don't follow
| their every move.
| inerte wrote:
| Heh, sorry. Being sarcastic. You're going into the right
| direction. A lot of people believe to save the
| environment (or fight global warming) the economy has to
| suffer, therefore I will lose my job, won't be able to
| put food on the table, and all of that so cute animals
| can survive.
|
| I was super sarcastic because it's not a view I share,
| but pretty common in the US. Heck, it's similar to the
| coronavirus situation right now, we can't stop the
| economy just to save people who are about to die anyway.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think in general, there have been some examples where
| the the environment has been prioritized of over people
| in a way that is hard to unsee. This can make some people
| very suspicious of such taglines and seeding the
| interpretation of the balance to others.
|
| An eye opener for me is how water policy is impacting
| small farmers in the eastern part of California. Imagine
| spending 40 years building a business, and then being
| told that starting in 2021 you will have to pay 1M$ in
| fees to continue pumping water that you have legal rights
| to using your own infrastructure. It is literally taking
| peoples livelihoods without any compensation and eminent
| domain.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > My comment seems to have spawned replies to unrelated
| subjects
|
| You have exactly four replies and all but one of them
| answers your question directly, politely and
| respectfully.
| manfredo wrote:
| Often "welcoming environments", especially when paired
| with progressive dogwhistles, really mean an environment
| that is hostile for those that are not on one end of the
| political spectrum. The threshold isn't just
| conservative, even moderate liberals fall afoul of this.
| For instance, not supporting the defunding of police
| would get you eviscerated at my company despite the fact
| that it's a view 75% of Americans share:
| https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/07/09/majority-
| of-...
| Veelox wrote:
| Their second listed value is
|
| > Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving
| just outcomes. We will prioritize the needs of the worst
| off. Neutrality never helps the victim.
|
| Social justice is a progressive view normally running
| counter to the individual responsibly outlook favored by
| conservatives. Prioritizing the needs of the worst off
| could be supported by conservatism but they will probably
| define "worst" in a way conservatives find objectionable.
| As for "Neutrality never helps the victim" that runs
| counter to a lot of American conservative thought that
| rule of law and applying rules neutrally is a massive
| progress over previously biased systems. The implication
| of the statement is that they want to remove neutrality
| in certain circumstances for certain people which goes
| against the conservative view that all people should be
| treated equally.
| [deleted]
| marcinzm wrote:
| I've seen harassment campaigns (which ended in a lawsuit
| against the chief harasser) over association with someone
| who associates with a certain group. So even if you're a
| liberal you can get in trouble for associating with the
| wrong people or speaking at the wrong conference or
| promoting the wrong project.
| yanderekko wrote:
| Yeah, the argument that this will primarily target
| conservatives is probably incorrect; the baseline
| population of conservatives at Google is probably dwarfed
| by the population of mainstream progressives who would
| fail in some way, shape, or form to abide by proper woke
| etiquette and thus create an unsafe environment.
|
| If you're remotely alarmed by what happened to James
| Damore, then you should be alarmed by a union that
| organizes itself around these sorts of values.
| marcinzm wrote:
| There's a certain kind of personality who needs to be a
| hero fighting against the enemy. It exists on both sides
| of the political spectrum. Both liberals and
| conservatives hate it when they see it on the opposite
| side but support it on their own side. When this sort of
| person lacks a clear enemy they will make one up. Some
| 10% of the group will always and must always be the
| enemy. Hope you don't end up unlucky enough to fall into
| that group.
|
| The language of these organizers triggers too many
| warnings in my head around being that kind of
| personality. No matter which side of the political
| spectrum they are on I try to not support these
| personalities.
| zaroth wrote:
| This reads like a PAC not a Union.
|
| Here's a statement from United Steelworkers, for
| comparison;
|
| https://m.usw.org/union/our-founding-principles
|
| Here's the SAG mission statement;
|
| https://www.sagaftra.org/about/mission-statement
|
| The primary goal of a union is to ensure safe and secure
| working conditions, the best compensation and benefits,
| etc.;
|
| > _negotiating the best wages, working conditions, and
| health and pension benefits; preserving and expanding
| members' work opportunities; vigorously enforcing our
| contracts; and protecting members against unauthorized use
| of their work._
|
| The purpose of a labor union is traditionally not to set
| corporate direction / input into the creative process, to
| ensure "right-think" in the workplace, or for social
| justice campaigns.
| oauea wrote:
| > The primary goal of a union is to ensure safe and
| secure working conditions, the best compensation and
| benefits, etc.
|
| No, that is the primary goal of the unions you are
| familiar with.
| zaroth wrote:
| Definitions mean something. IANAL, but as I understand
| it, trade unions are a legally protected entity, not an
| abstract concept which relates to any organization of
| people who happen to be employed in the same line of
| work.
|
| > trade union: _An organization of workers in the same
| skilled occupation or related skilled occupations who act
| together to secure for all members favorable wages,
| hours, and other working conditions._
|
| There is apparently a concept in trade unions called the
| "golden formulae";
|
| > golden formulae _a non-technical but convenient
| expression to describe the conditions required for a
| trade union to benefit from the limited immunities
| available to it under legislation. There must first be a
| trade dispute that relates wholly or mainly to matters
| such as terms and conditions of employment, sacking or
| suspension of workers, allocation of work, discipline,
| membership of a union, facilities for union officials or
| negotiating regime. The acts in question must be in
| contemplation of furtherance of the dispute._
|
| So, for example, the legal benefits of a union may not
| confer to any possible activity a group of employees may
| conduct, but rather must pertain to specific aspects of
| their employment and relations to their employer.
|
| US Federal labor law defines a trade union as;
|
| > _any organization of any kind, or any agency or
| employee representation committee or plan, in which
| employees participate and which exists for the purpose,
| in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning
| grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of
| employment, or conditions of work._
|
| I'm not saying that it's impossible for a collective of
| employees to organize around political rallying points,
| just that these actions are not generally recognized as
| the purpose of a trade union, and perhaps would not be
| legally protected in the same way.
|
| For example, there are carve-outs to requiring employees
| to pay union dues which are not used for specific
| purposes;
|
| > _In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled (5-3) in
| Communications Workers v. Beck that private-sector
| workers who are not full union members cannot be forced
| to pay for the "social, charitable, and political"
| activities of unions. They can only be forced to pay the
| portion of dues used for "collective bargaining, contract
| administration, and grievance adjustment." Per the
| ruling, the federal law that requires compulsory unionism
| in certain situations does not provide the unions with a
| means for forcing employees, over their objection, to
| support political causes which they oppose._
|
| To the extent that this "union" is more of a PAC than a
| collective bargaining agreement over labor contracts, the
| specific protections (like required payment of dues) melt
| away.
|
| [1] - https://legal-
| dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/trade+union
|
| [2] - https://www.justfacts.com/unions.asp
| dundarious wrote:
| I agree somewhat, the values are a bit wishy-washy, like
| Google's original "Don't be evil". But I think the
| dramatically different circumstances of our time are
| playing a huge role in the distinction you're drawing.
|
| USW were fighting for the abolition of child labor --
| this is not a direct concern for Alphabet employees,
| thankfully. Actor's Equity Association were fighting
| against McCarthyism and blacklisting (which SAG
| participated in, and apologized for in 1997).
|
| In particular, for the Alphabet union effort, I think
| their press release[0] is more concrete. I think the
| goals of increased workplace democracy, pressuring
| management to prevent pushing externalities, and
| preventing suppression and retaliation in the workplace
| are pretty relevant, and would be high on my list for a
| prospective union for tech workers.
|
| Ironically, I think they would draw much more ire if they
| merely focused on analogous workplace/worklife comfort
| improvements, for Software Engineers at least, given
| their famed perks. Hopefully the union targets the
| Alphabet employees who really do need workplace/worklife
| improvements, mostly found in the non-full-time ranks.
|
| [0] https://alphabetworkersunion.org/press/releases/2021-
| 01-04-c...
| marcinzm wrote:
| I suspect many of those values are not shared by a large
| proportion of the US population and likely by a non trivial
| percentage of Google workers. They are liberal values and
| not universal values. You, and me, seem to share those
| values which is fine but please don't claim they are
| universally shared. As such they are the personal values of
| the organizers which they are trying to make company values
| applicable to all workers.
| capableweb wrote:
| > I suspect many of those values are not shared by a
| large proportion of the US population
|
| That's not really relevant, the union will focus on
| Google and it's workplace, not the US as a whole. Maybe
| in the future they'll have impact in US politics, but
| that's not how unions start out.
|
| > likely by a non trivial percentage of Google workers
|
| I guess that's why they announced this, to see how many
| agree with it. We already know by fact that Google try to
| prevent internal discussions about unions, hence the
| people wanting to unionize, have to communicate in other
| ways (press releases to reach more people).
|
| > As such they are the personal values of the organizers
|
| They might also be the personal value of the organizers,
| but the explicit goal of setting up a organization (or
| more specifically a union) is to setup an organization
| that reflects those views. Once the organization is
| setup, it's the organizations values, not their personal
| values.
| pwned1 wrote:
| > Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving
| just outcomes
|
| Social justice is not justice
| capableweb wrote:
| Ok, let's hear your definitions of what social justice
| is, and what justice is?
|
| In a traditional sense, social justice is referring to
| the balance between the individual and society at large.
| Distribution of wealth, public services/schools,
| taxation, regulations of markets and more are part of
| what social justice is, at least in this part of the
| world.
|
| That does sound like justice to me. It's not criminal
| justice, which you might be referring to, but more
| justice in the sense of "just behavior or treatment".
| dnissley wrote:
| Best definition I've heard:
|
| _" Social justice" is an awkward term for an immensely
| important project, perhaps the most important project,
| which is to make the world a more equitable, fair, and
| compassionate place._
|
| _But the project for social justice has been captured by
| an elite strata of post-collegiate, digitally-enabled
| children of privilege, who do not pursue that project as
| an end, but rather use it as a means with which to
| compete, socially and professionally, with each other._
|
| _In that use, they value not speech or actions that
| actually result in a better world, but rather those that
| result in greater social reward, which in the digital
| world is obvious and explicit. That means that they
| prefer engagement that creates a) outrage and b) jokes,
| rather than engagement that leads to positive change._
|
| _In this disregard for actual political success, they
| reveal their own privilege, as it's only the privileged
| who could ever have so little regard for actual, material
| progress. As long as they are allowed to co-opt the
| movement for social justice for their own personal
| aggrandizement, the world will not improve, not for
| women, people of color, gay and transgender people, or
| the poor._
| pwned1 wrote:
| Justice is coming up with a fair outcome based on an
| objective examination of the input factors. For example,
| deciding on guilt based on an objective examination of
| evidence.
|
| Social justice is an arbitrary judgment based on
| subjective examination of inputs. It's collectivism.
| Disregard for individuals.
| capableweb wrote:
| > It's collectivism. Disregard for individuals.
|
| This is a clear misunderstanding. We're talking about two
| different social justice's here. The social justice
| you're talking about is the current moral panic many feel
| in the US today. The social justice I'm (and hopefully
| the future union) talking about, is balancing society at
| large and the individuals. Not disregarding, balancing.
| That means that sometimes the individual has to have less
| of something and society more, and sometimes the other
| way around.
|
| But maybe the word "social justice" in the US has been
| completely co-opted by TV politics, so us in the rest of
| the world now talk a different language...
| coryfklein wrote:
| Yes, the _phrase_ "social justice" _has_ been co-opted.
| So if you or anyone else wants to refer to what that
| phrase meant _20 years ago_ , then you should stop using
| the phrase "social justice".
| manfredo wrote:
| Right, and forcing balanced outcomes when there's very
| unbalanced inputs is not justice in the eyes of many
| people. Consider the fact that Asian students in the US
| spend on average 110 minutes a day studying as compared
| to Whites' ~55 and Black student's ~35 [1]. Forcing a
| balanced outcome with disparate inputs is not what many
| consider just behavior. I have not only witnessed, but
| carried out, similar policy in tech. E.g. companies
| setting diversity targets that are substantially higher
| (often over 2x higher) than the said groups'
| representation in the field. I have also worked at
| companies that let women and URM candidates take two
| attempts at passing the pre-onsite technical phone
| interview while white and Asian men get one chance.
|
| Maybe this isn't the kind of "social justice" Google
| union activists are arriving for. But if that's the case
| the union activists should lay out specific goals, like
| establishing name-blind resume reviews, eliminating
| gender and racial quotas, or something else. Otherwise,
| my instinct is to lump their views into the same trend as
| the social justice activists I have encountered during my
| time working in tech which tends to be hostile to
| meritocracy and desires picking outcomes a priori.
|
| To be clear, it's fine to be in favor of affirmation
| action as an individual and I often support it myself,
| but I definitely wouldn't want a union enforcing it and I
| could see why many people would be alienated by a union
| movement espousing it.
|
| 1. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-
| chalkboard/2017/...
| splaytreemap wrote:
| Pretty much every politician ever has used manipulative
| language to try to make themselves sound better than they
| are. It's why abortion activists call themselves pro-
| life/pro-choice. To take their words at face value is
| incredibly naive. For example, the line about "economic
| justice" almost certainly means the authors believe the
| company should be used as a propaganda vehicle for
| socialism/communism. And the line about a "welcoming
| environment" is an outright lie as shown by these same
| employees' bullying and harassment of numerous wrong-
| thinking employees (James Damore and Miles Taylor come to
| mind as a few examples).
| mancerayder wrote:
| > For example, the line about "economic justice" almost
| certainly means the authors believe the company should be
| used as a propaganda vehicle for socialism/communism
|
| These days it's for race+gender-orientated demands.
| capableweb wrote:
| > To take their words at face value is incredibly naive
|
| I agree, but that's what we have to go on, as this effort
| just started. The opposite is naive as well, where you
| assume everyone always have hidden agendas. The truth is
| probably somewhere in the middle.
|
| > For example, the line about "economic justice" almost
| certainly means the authors believe the company should be
| used as a propaganda vehicle for socialism/communism.
|
| Well, yes and no. Yes, you can describe their economic
| justice value as socialistic, I don't think they are
| trying to hide that. Here's the full value:
|
| > Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving
| just outcomes. We will prioritize the needs of the worst
| off. Neutrality never helps the victim.
|
| Yes, sounds like socialism. Exactly what they are aiming
| to implement in the Google/Alphabet workplace. The people
| who sign up with the union, are people who agree they
| want to focus on fixing that particular problem. That's a
| strong point of unions in general, to align about common
| values.
|
| Not sure how you get it to be a "Google should be used as
| a propaganda vehicle". The employees there want to
| improve their own workplace by implementing their ideas.
| Now they are calling for others (who agree) to join them.
| I don't have any skin in the game, so I'm fine either
| way. But I find the process of even trying this to be
| refreshing, no matter what their values and ultimately
| their impact will be.
| Aunche wrote:
| These activists forced Google to oust a black women out
| of AI ethics (Kay Cole James), and are now complaining
| that Google doesn't care about black women in AI ethics
| when someone woke gets let go. It's so transparent that
| they only care about their political goals.
| bslyke wrote:
| Chicken, egg issue I think. The people most likely to seed the
| movement are gonna be activist type people whereas the actual
| majority of workers might just be left/libertarian leaning but
| mostly non-political people. Once the majority of workers are
| part of the union, and if it's really democratic, then the
| union should reflect what the members want it to reflect (even
| if it ends up being the same as the activists').
| x87678r wrote:
| Yeah that doesn't look like any union I've ever seen.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| This comment is so low effort, can you provide any evidence
| or backing for your statement?
| x87678r wrote:
| From the definition of unions there isn't much overlap. Yes
| they want to protect Google Workers from harassment which
| is valuable but doesn't sound like they're fighting for
| improving wages, benefits, or working conditions. https://e
| n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Sta...
| capableweb wrote:
| What unions have you seen/participated in? What countries are
| those located in? Could you imagine a union that does
| something that is not shared with those unions you've seen?
|
| Being unlike other unions doesn't have to bad, could be great
| thing. Why not improve on top of the idea of unions and try
| to come up with something even better? Seems like an
| excellent idea, especially in these times of "disruption" of
| industries left and right.
| jskell725 wrote:
| You might get a Google indeed; some new vehicle that helps
| move society forward. But I suspect a very dangerous
| Theranos; except the union members will be left holdng the
| mess after it blows up .
| seneca wrote:
| This is exactly why I would never join a tech union. Just read
| their mission statement: this is about enforcing political
| goals via any power source they can get their hands on. Much
| like a lot of recent codes of conduct in open source projects.
| capableweb wrote:
| I think you might misunderstand the goal of a union. It's
| inherently political, that's the whole point of it. And the
| values from the mission statement does sound like something
| every company should aim for, but sometimes they forget we're
| all humans here, so we need something to keep companies in
| check.
|
| I'm not sure comparing unions to code of conducts are
| suitable. Unions are a historically old and proven way for
| workers to enact change in workplaces, industries and even
| entire countries. Code of conducts in open source is a fairly
| new invention (officially, written down ones at least) with
| no such track record.
| seneca wrote:
| > I think you might misunderstand the goal of a union. It's
| inherently political, that's the whole point of it.
|
| I think this is disingenuous. It's inherently political,
| yes, but historically it is the politics of the workplace
| that a union focuses on. Specifically workplace safety,
| compensation, and benefits. This mission statement is
| explicitly dragging larger social activism into the
| workplace.
|
| > Unions are a historically old and proven way for workers
| to enact change in workplaces, industries and even entire
| countries. Code of conducts in open source is a fairly new
| invention (officially, written down ones at least) with no
| such track record.
|
| It is the same pattern of dragging social activism into a
| domain where it is not inherently relevant, and using
| bureaucracy to force it onto members. One mechanism of
| doing so being old or new isn't the point.
| capableweb wrote:
| > historically it is the politics of the workplace that a
| union focuses on
|
| Might be so in the US, but certainly not everywhere. Nor
| just because it's been so in the US before, doesn't mean
| it has to be like that. In Spain for example, unions are
| one of the most active and most likely to actually
| achieve political change in the country, at least judging
| by how it's been so far.
|
| Which ones of the announced values you feel is trying to
| be applied to society at large? The way I'm reading it,
| all the values are geared towards Google and it's
| workplace, not going further than that.
| Veelox wrote:
| > And the values from the mission statement does sound like
| something every company should aim for
|
| For the record here is the second listed value
|
| > Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving
| just outcomes. We will prioritize the needs of the worst
| off. Neutrality never helps the victim.
|
| Let me speak plainly. This type of phrasing is extremely
| common for progressives. A Trump voter would read this as
| politically charged and outside the scope of most unions.
| If you cannot see why someone would oppose this you need to
| widen the scope of people you talk to.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| It's also just like how unions work.
|
| Unions _are_ a progressive concept.
| KODeKarnage wrote:
| Not really. Unions often operate as guilds, restricting
| access to potential employees and restricting the trade
| of members.
| Bresenham wrote:
| > it is going to be significantly harder to start steering the
| company's product direction and social responsibility efforts
| than 'just' representing the employees during e.g. benefits and
| compensation negotiations.
|
| Unions with a very limited focus on their member's compensation
| negotiations tend to be either short-lived or so weak it is
| like they don't exist. Just for survival, unions want wider
| unionization in their own industry and then other industries
| and then internationally.
|
| Actually FAANG was already organized against employee
| compensation in the secret pact between Steve Jobs, Eric
| Schmidt etc. which courts found illegal.
|
| Are corporations and their majority controlling shareholders
| just representing the employers "during e.g. benefits and
| compensation negotiations". No. In 1938, the American
| Enterprise Association (now called AEI) was formed by Chrysler,
| General Mills, Paine Webber to push corporate hegemony. Their
| website is one screed after another attacking progressive
| values. If these companies think it important to spend money
| attacking, as you call them, progressive values, why should
| unions limit themselves in not defending them? It makes little
| sense to start things out with one hand tied behind the back.
| AEI is just one front of corporate America's many fronts.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Yes they should stick to actual "Trade union union issues" to
| start with - and remember that large number of Google employees
| would be ok working on defence and probably voted republican.
|
| Selling tech to oppressive nation states who are not the USA's
| friends is a separate issue
| capableweb wrote:
| > large number of Google employees would be ok working on
| defence
|
| > probably voted republican
|
| I'm not saying you're wrong, but do you have any surveys or
| data points to support those two points?
|
| Seems you and a few others here on HN would do good by
| reading up on trade unions look around the world. As far as
| I'm reading their values, all of them are within "Trade union
| issues" and doesn't consider having a country-wide political
| impact. The people working on this are trying to adjust their
| own workplace.
| dnissley wrote:
| Santa Clara County (where Google's headquarters are)
| election results:
|
| Biden: 72.64% (617k votes) Trump: 25.23% (214k votes)
|
| Source: https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Santa_C
| lara/1060...
|
| Caveats galore of course: Not every Santa Clara resident
| works at Google, not every worker at that office lives in
| Santa Clara county, Google has many other offices in other
| areas, voting for Trump doesn't mean someone is republican,
| etc. etc.
|
| But, it would be pretty surprising to me if there wasn't a
| sizable minority -- say at least 10% -- of workers at
| Google that voted republican/trump.
|
| Here's another data point, re: donations to political
| parties by Google employees, with probably an even longer
| list of caveats than the above analysis:
|
| Democrats: $5,437,048 (88%) Republicans: $766,920 (12%)
|
| Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-
| companies-...
| mchusma wrote:
| I thought the most interesting part of this was the fact that it
| is not a "traditional union" or "required union", its "members
| only union".
|
| Linked from the article: https://tcf.org/content/report/members-
| only-unions-can-they-...
|
| I think traditional unions have a lot of issues, but these
| "members only unions" seem like something that avoids those
| issues. If someone wants to voluntarily pay a group to help
| represent their interests, great! If the union no longer
| represents their interests, they can leave.
| timvisee wrote:
| What a shitshow at al these large companies these days.
| realshadow wrote:
| I never liked google and googlers.
|
| Google is nothing but a monster which shares private info with
| goverments and companies. Use their platforms to rev up their
| products at the expensive of small business.
|
| so i do not care what happens to google/googlers.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| I can't wait to see how combining unionism with social justice
| politics improves google's products. Very excited.
| ausbah wrote:
| what do they need to be "successful"? a certain % of employees?
| tsjq wrote:
| 30%
| secondcoming wrote:
| > Google contractors have long complained about their unequal
| treatment compared to full-time staff. While they make up the
| majority of Google's workforce, they often lack the benefits of
| salaried employees
|
| I don't know how it works in the US, but in the UK contractors
| benefit from tax advantages compared to salaried employees,
| although HMRC is actively trying to kill the contractor market by
| tightening IR35 rules. That said, if contractors end up getting
| the same benefits as salaried employees then their contractor
| status is on dodgy legal ground. This may be a phyrric victory
| for them.
| zthrowaway wrote:
| Some of the most highly paid, privileged and marketable
| individuals in our industry, easily in the top 5% of income in
| the economy... what's the point of this? Google employees are a
| far cry from the romanticized proletariat fighting against the
| bourgeoisie.
| John23832 wrote:
| If you read the article, you would see content about contract
| workers.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I saw that it was mostly that the contract workers don't get
| the same benefits. But how is this different than other
| places? In some cases, benefits need to restricted or you
| risk them becoming shadow employees (ie hands are tied by
| law).
| John23832 wrote:
| Again more details in the article. The verge article links
| a NYT article which goes in depth on the "two tier system"
| within google.
|
| That's not to say that even outsourced contractors couldn't
| benefit from unionizing with google employees. Google has
| the leverage to improve the lives of its subcontractors,
| but pressuring the contracting company.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I guess my real question is, how is this different from
| anywhere in the industry?
| John23832 wrote:
| Why does it have to be different? If under
| representation/abuse is prevalent in an industry nothing
| should be done about it?
| giantg2 wrote:
| What "under representation/abuse"? Contractors typically
| get paid a higher rate so they can pay for their own
| benefits.
| John23832 wrote:
| Again, you're asking things you could easily read in the
| article.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Perhaps I read the article and don't agree with your
| assessment.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I somewhat agree. Most tech workers are above the median salary
| in the US ($35k). I don't make nearly as much as a Google
| employee, but I would like a union for a couple reasons (they
| could mostly fix this through legislation and avoid the unions)
| like removing forced arbitration, or having an actual contract
| rather than a one pager that says they make the rules and can
| change them anytime without notice.
|
| And speaking of income. It seems like 1% of that group's income
| is a high number for supporting the union.
| londons_explore wrote:
| With their current membership of just 230 people, the ~$500k
| annual memberships probably won't get anywhere near to paying
| for the protracted legal battle they're surely about to
| enter...
| giantg2 wrote:
| I didn't realize the number was so low. I thought they
| usually have to reach a specific percentage of workers on
| the petition before they unionize.
| saalweachter wrote:
| There are practical and legal thresholds, yeah; if X% of
| the company doesn't join over the next N months, you'll
| probably see lines in Google-related articles about the
| "failed attempt to form a union", even if it doesn't
| warrant headlines.
|
| I should also note that 1% is like, a starting number
| here. If the union is successfully formed and dues start
| accumulating "Let's cut the union dues to 0.5%" is going
| to be an _extremely_ popular position for (prospective)
| union leaders to take.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Pretty big gamble (even though it shouldn't be) for those
| people who have signed on if they don't meet that
| threshold. I think tech has been very resistant to
| unionize.
| andobando wrote:
| 1. It includes all workers, including janitors. 2. The unions
| goal more so here seems to be to democratize the company
| process over concerns that the corporate structure puts money
| over people.
|
| >Everyone at Alphabet -- from bus drivers to programmers, from
| salespeople to janitors -- plays a critical part in developing
| our technology. But right now, a few wealthy executives define
| what the company produces and how its workers are treated. This
| isn't the company we want to work for. We care deeply about
| what we build and what it's used for. We are responsible for
| the technology we bring into the world. And we recognize that
| its implications reach far beyond the walls of Alphabet.
| biffstallion wrote:
| Google keeps rabble rousing when it comes to certain political
| issues of nonsense. Here Google, how does it feel to have have it
| back onto you now.
| rdgthree wrote:
| It seems incredibly significant that only 230 people are
| officially involved with these plans to unionize. As of 2019,
| Google had nearly 120,000 employees.[0] That seems quite small,
| relatively speaking.
|
| Legally (I think, just learning about this now), to form a union,
| a majority of workers must show their willingness to form a
| union. Alternatively, to choose an existing union to join, an
| election with 30% of the workers support is required.[1]
|
| So with that said, am I reading this right? Does this group of
| 230 people need to find _at least_ ~40,000 more people for this
| to be a valid effort to form /join a legal union?
|
| [0]https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/02/google-employee-
| growth-2001-...
|
| [1]https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/how-to-
| form-a...
| dathinab wrote:
| Due to all kinds of reasons people tend to not wanting to be
| officially associated with an budding union until it becomes
| reality.
|
| I mean you can guess which 230 people are more likely to lose
| their job, then they had been before (if the union fails).
|
| (I don't mean Google will target them, but that if Google
| considers letting them go for whatever other reason it's now
| more likely that they will let them go.)
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Historically Google has targeted people that advocate for
| unions.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Especially when they abuse internal systems to promote it.
| [deleted]
| impalallama wrote:
| yes, _abusing_ internal systems.
|
| imagine using tools explicitly created to facilitate
| communication and organization between employees but
| suddenly its abuse when used for organize something other
| than a potluck
| manfredo wrote:
| This was not a chat tool. It was a security extension
| that one person used as their political soapbox.
| smhost wrote:
| it was a good-ass soapbox though
| BostonFern wrote:
| A person on the security team tasked with notifying
| employees browsing the Web of company guidelines and
| policies decided to author a policy notification entirely
| of her own.
|
| That's like the guy hanging up memos from the top floor
| in the company lunch room one day deciding to slip in a
| political message, printed on official company stationary
| to disguise it as an official memo.
|
| It's not about using general-purpose internal
| communication tools to remind co-workers of their rights,
| it's abuse of a privileged position involving the power
| to broadcast official messages.
|
| Whether someone thinks it's justified by the cause is a
| separate argument.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Defining a 'break room' and legally protected workplace
| communications wasn't really ready for the internet age
| when this happened (this is the context behind the above
| two posts for those out of the loop[0]). Thankfully NLRB
| weighed in and suggested that this was protected
| communication [1], or they at least are suing to argue
| that case[2] (still an open case).
|
| 0: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/engineer-
| says-go...
|
| 1: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/12/cpt20...
|
| 2: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/20-CA-252802
| grumple wrote:
| I don't think this is correct. Maybe that's for some place
| where there's forced union membership?
|
| I've worked at places where certain departments were unionized
| (for example hospitality) but others were not. Far below any
| such 30% threshold for total employment. Also unions form at
| individual worksites all the time, so I sincerely doubt there's
| any company-wide membership requirements.
|
| Edit: I'm correct. There's this concept of a bargaining unit,
| so it would only have to be workers doing a certain type of
| work in a certain place, generally, though it can be just those
| doing a certain type of work:
|
| https://www.workplacefairness.org/labor-unions#4
|
| A company like google could end up with hundreds of unions.
| avianlyric wrote:
| Reading the article, it sounds like they do need to find
| ~40,000 votes. The article mentions that now they've announced
| the unionisation attempt, they're gonna starting doing lots of
| public campaigning to collect the votes they need.
| rdgthree wrote:
| Yeah, they definitely need to gather support of some sort,
| I'm just curious about the scale. 40,000 people from within
| the 120,000+ organization seems huge. If that's really the
| case, the coverage so far would seem fairly sensationalist -
| 0.25% of employees signing on to unionize is a drop in the
| bucket next to a required _minimum_ 30% of the workforce
| signed on.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I mean, I think it is always the case that organizing
| efforts start with a small number of very activist
| employees and escalate from there. That has at least been
| my understanding of organizing MO, so sort of an odd
| standard to hold.
|
| Huge difference between signing on and voting in a secret
| ballot - esp. in the context of in a company.
| avianlyric wrote:
| I think the article is pretty accurate, the title looks
| pretty spot on
|
| > Google workers announce plans to unionize
|
| I agree that the number involved is quite small at the
| moment, but given how hostile Google has been to any
| unisation effort, the fact the 230 people have organised
| anyway, and now put their jobs on the line, is quite a big
| thing.
|
| I suspect that there are many at Google that would happily
| join a union, just look at how high the attendance of
| Google's walk outs have been. This announcement clearly
| indicates that union organisers believe they have enough
| support to come out of the woodwork, and start some serious
| campaigning.
| rdgthree wrote:
| The title is _technically_ accurate, but I think the
| omission of scale and any sense of how far along these
| plans are leaves quite a sensationalist tidbit. "Google
| workers announce plans to unionize" translated to "the
| necessary amount of employees at Google to form a union
| are unionizing" on my first pass. I clicked immediately
| because that seemed significant. I'm sure this was the
| intention, though I can only speculate. A clear and less
| sensationalist (though less click-worthy) title could
| have been as simple as: "230 Google workers announce
| plans to unionize"
|
| That being said, I'm not contesting the validity of the
| movement - it's certainly possible that thousands of
| Googlers will sign on in support now that the movement is
| public, and more power to them!
|
| It just seems like the reporting on this should be making
| it more clear where this effort stands and just how much
| needs to happen before it's legally viable. Arguably,
| more honest reporting in that regard would help make
| clear to potential allies that their support is needed,
| and this is not a sure thing.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Without defending Google management at all, I'll say that
| everyone who got fired was not at all careful in their
| activity. Organizing a union is different from doing
| intentionally disruptive protest activity, and while one
| can argue that both are morally correct, one is a lot
| more job-threatening than the other.
|
| The people who are organization the union and signing
| petitions, but not hacking employer systems or calling
| their coworkers "Nazis" are still employed and organizing
| but also less visible to the public.
|
| Much like cyclists facing cars have to learn that it's
| better to be alive than claim the right of way and be
| dead, activists need to be smart about taking calculated
| risks. (And if people are calculating that getting fired
| is good for their political cause or future career at a
| like-minded organization, then good for them!)
| soperj wrote:
| Personally I find it more dangerous not to claim the
| right of way. People try to pass you in all sorts of
| weird and precarious positions.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| > I suspect that there are many at Google that would
| happily join a union, just look at how high the
| attendance of Google's walk outs have been.
|
| You're assuming a lot here. The Google Walkout had a huge
| attendance because it had zero teeth and zero commitment.
| People took their lunch break outside to say "I don't
| like sexual harassment". Then they went back to their
| desks and back to work. Google refused all but one of
| their demands, fired or drove out all of the organizers,
| and went on with it's day.
|
| Essentially, very few people who walked out would put
| their cushy Google job on the line for what they believe
| in. The organizers did, they're gone. A handful of other
| people since then have also put their jobs on the line
| for their principals, they've also now been fired. Every
| time Google has fired organizers, it has made it much
| harder for the remaining workers to organize, both
| because the people who would organize are gone, and those
| left have a cautionary tale of what happens if they do.
|
| Everyone at Google today is someone who had a chance to
| stand up for what's right in a manner that risks their
| employment, and has chosen not to do so.
| vitus wrote:
| > I suspect that there are many at Google that would
| happily join a union, just look at how high the
| attendance of Google's walk outs have been.
|
| I'm hopeful that you're right, but I also suspect that a
| lot of engineers will look at the fees and decide "hey,
| 1% of my total compensation is actually a hefty amount."
| The walkouts were free.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| 1% of 100K people making over $100K/yr is an insanely
| huge amount of money for a union.
|
| This smells like "1% is the smallest positive number"
| fallacy on behalf of the owners.
|
| (But that 1% is perhaps/likely only salary not equity.)
|
| Blue collar unions need money to pay bills during a
| strike, but Googlers don't need that.
|
| A big question to ask is whether Googlers need to pay for
| union or if they should donate to politicians who would
| regulate Google.
| vitus wrote:
| > 1% of 100K people making over $100K/yr is an insanely
| huge amount of money for a union.
|
| Well, think about it this way. 1% of 200k people making
| >$50k is the same amount.
|
| There are 775k members of the IBEW, for reference, which
| charges 2% of base wages in additional to fixed
| overheads. The SAG charges dues of 1.575% on the first
| $500k. Writer's Guild charges 1.5% with no cap. So 1% is
| actually low.
|
| > (But that 1% is perhaps/likely only salary not equity.)
|
| The article stated "compensation", which I suppose could
| go either way, but I lean toward "total compensation" in
| my reading. But either way, I'm sure the majority of
| Google employees do make over $100k in base salary
| (between those in the Bay Area, New York, Seattle,
| Boston, London, and more).
|
| > A big question to ask is whether Googlers need to pay
| for union or if they should donate to politicians who
| would regulate Google.
|
| How many of those regulations would impact the
| profitability of Google (e.g. through antitrust
| enforcement) versus encourage better working conditions?
| koheripbal wrote:
| ... and likely that this post is part of that attempt to
| publicize the effort.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| It's significant in the sense that it shows google's sucesses
| in been fighting attempts to unionise. In addition for straight
| up prohibiting employees to gather in larger groups (no more
| than 100 per event or 10 rooms at once) they've been reading
| employee communications and firing people:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/02/google-spied-on-employees-il...
| trissylegs wrote:
| Also bring in consultants known for their "Union
| vulnerability assesments". i.e. Consultants for dissuading
| employees from unionizing.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/technology/Google-
| union-c...
| lokar wrote:
| I think the 30% rule (and even the vote) is only needed for a
| "traditional" union that seeks exclusive authority to negotiate
| wages etc.
|
| This is something else.
| dcre wrote:
| They are not trying to form a traditional majority union.
|
| > unlike a traditional union, which demands that an employer
| come to the bargaining table to agree on a contract, the
| Alphabet Workers Union is a so-called minority union that
| represents a fraction of the company's more than 260,000 full-
| time employees and contractors. Workers said it was primarily
| an effort to give structure and longevity to activism at
| Google, rather than to negotiate for a contract.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/technology/google-employe...
| dannykwells wrote:
| This is a very important comment, not sure why it's not
| higher. This isn't really a union in the traditional sense -
| it's just a group of hyper liberal Google activist employees
| who are banding together to try to get institutional change.
| akie wrote:
| "hyper liberal" you say -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| In societies that are not America, unions are traditionally
| left of center but most definitely still more or less in
| the center.
|
| It seems that political discussions relating to the US
| don't have the appropriate vocabulary to discuss political
| opinions that are positioned to the left of the corporate
| wing of the Democratic party.
| farazzz wrote:
| I think the OP meant liberal in the sense that activism
| at Google tends to be for liberal causes
| ReaganFJones wrote:
| Even among unions, the tone and political messaging from
| the AWU is particularly left. It's obvious if you
| contrast the AWU's stated principles and values with a
| more traditional union.
| artursapek wrote:
| Sounds like exactly the type of stuff Coinbase was wise
| enough to smother recently.
| vncecartersknee wrote:
| Smacks of controlled opposition tbh.
| sct202 wrote:
| Traditional unions target specific job role at specific
| locations, where you only need people in that job at that
| location to vote for unionization. It seems like a lofty goal
| to try to unionize the whole company in one go, when you don't
| have a track record of successes at a small scale you can point
| to as reasons that this union is a good idea on a large scale.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| You have to start some where, I was involved in successfully
| recovering collective representation for senior sales grades
| in BT a while back.
|
| Also I believe in the USA has structural issues where each
| location has a union and not a whole company un ion
| izacus wrote:
| Note that despite their public claims, it seems that non-North
| American (that is, European, Australian, Asian, African and
| South American) Google employees aren't allowed to join this
| union.
|
| So this lowers the pool by quite a bit.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Years ago, my friend was part of a small movement to unionize a
| certain universally hated company that rhymes with Omfast.
|
| They thought it would be a home run given all of the nonsense
| that goes on there. As it turns out, selling people on the idea
| of unionizing is much harder than it sounds. People weren't
| even necessarily afraid of the company, they just didn't want
| to be in a union.
|
| They, too, gathered a small number of people at first, but the
| effort fizzled out when the initial enthusiasm didn't spread
| beyond those few idealistic people.
|
| In a company the size of Google, it wouldn't be hard to find
| 230 people who would claim to be unionizing, but it doesn't
| mean much when you're talking about a tiny fraction of
| employees.
| forbiddenvoid wrote:
| It's also the case that the leadership of said company
| communicates (or did 12 years ago) anti-union rhetoric to
| their employees on a regular basis (starting from
| orientation) and requests employees to report any unionizing
| talk from other employees. Always with the same language
| about how unions are bad for employees, etc.
| pnw_hazor wrote:
| They formed a Members-only union which can exist absent a
| majority of employees joining. The terminology is confusing
| since all unions are member-only.
|
| These minority unions do not have collective bargaining rights
| unless the employer agrees.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members-only_unionism
| alkonaut wrote:
| The 100k+ figure is globally though, correct? I'm assuming
| there are other countries where white collar workers, Including
| Google employees, are already commonly unionized.
| frewsxcv wrote:
| Keeping something secret amongst 230 people is _not_ an easy
| task. At some point the campaign has to become public, and it
| 's better to do that in a planned, coordinated manner, than
| have it get leaked to the press.
| readams wrote:
| Google is already being ruined by this tiny minority of
| sanctimonious blowhards. This is just a move to give more power
| to themselves to push their own political agenda in Google.
| Personally I want nothing to do with them, and I'd prefer that
| they just leave the company if they're unhappy. There's still
| lots of companies that want to hire software engineers, though
| of course they may find that nobody else puts up with their
| nonsense either.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| These are the people behind the Google Graveyard, the
| company's awful track record on UX and product design, and
| its core business strategy of making you, the user, the
| product through data monetization?
| joshuamorton wrote:
| That's a bit of a reach.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I'm saying that those are major customer-facing reasons
| for why Google is seen as not good these days, not inside
| baseball culture wars that could be attributable to a
| "tiny minority of sanctimonious blowhards".
| aaomidi wrote:
| What is HN doing about serious attempts from the likes of
| Pinkertons to create FUD in these threads?
|
| We know for a fact that tech companies are their customer, and we
| know they're ruthless in online disinfo. Is HN doing any
| monitoring to the discourse to make sure the comments are coming
| from actual individuals rather than a company buying up a bunch
| of HN accounts with history and creating disfino and FUD?
| madamelic wrote:
| It shouldn't be shocking that a site full of tech nerds is
| going to be rallying for meritocracy when these unions want 1%
| of salaries.
|
| I don't see how a union would make my life better. When I hate
| my job, I leave my job and find a new one within a week. If I
| am swapping into a new role or looking for something specific,
| a month.
|
| I just see this as creating an additional bureaucratic layer
| that steals my money and gives me the same rights I currently
| do.
|
| What more could someone want? Foot massages? Even at a non-
| FAANG company, life as an SE is very comfortable.
| objclxt wrote:
| When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of
| misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what unions
| are for and who they serve. People often seem to think of unions
| as being purely blue-collar operations, and this just isn't true.
|
| For example, I've had people tell me that they don't support
| unions in tech because they'll be "paid less", or less competent
| engineers will be promoted faster.
|
| And it's strange, because the _other_ major industry in
| California - the film industry - is heavily unionised, and you
| just don 't see that happening there. You have vocally supportive
| multi-millionaire card-carrying members of the Screen Actors
| Guild, the Writers Guild, and the Directors Guild to name a few.
| None of these unions are limiting the work their members are
| carrying out.
|
| This is because those unions are serving a very different purpose
| to the stereotypical union some engineers seem to fear. SAG, the
| DGA, and the WGA aren't guaranteeing hours or limiting pay:
| they're simply trying to curb abuse in what it a very abusive
| industry, and putting in place procedures to protect members and
| resolve grievances.
|
| And they don't always get it right, and I don't pretend that
| Hollywood is a perfect utopia of worker relations, but I think
| it's pretty undeniable that the industry is a much better place
| with the unions around.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Are you really holding up the film industry as a model that
| tech should emulate?
|
| Because the median annual wage for SAG-AFTRA members is about
| $7500 [1]. And that doesn't even include members who failed to
| find any work during the year. 85% of members don't make enough
| to get health benefits through the union, which kick in if you
| make over $18K/year [2]. These are poverty-level wages.
|
| [1] https://www.smdp.com/noteworthy-your-union-has-screwed-
| you/1...
|
| [2] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-actors-
| insurance-2014...
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Are you really pretending that actors have the same sort of
| work schedules as developers?
| astura wrote:
| Um, that seems like a consequence of the nature of acting,
| which is short term gigs with lots of competition rather than
| a consequence of unionization.
|
| The only actor I personally know just does it on the side for
| some extra cash rather than it being her day job.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The misperception that unions are only for blue-collar workers
| is one of the causes of the decline of quality of life for the
| average American worker.
|
| America made a massive shift from labor-backed economy to
| service-sector-backed economy, and in doing so, the percentage
| of workers in unions dropped drastically. Unions aren't for
| only labor; they're for any situation where there's an
| asymmetry in negotiating power between the company owners and
| the employees (which is, basically, every company).
| StreamBright wrote:
| > they're simply trying to curb abuse
|
| I thought this is why we have laws. What aspect of the industry
| is abusive that you are referring to?
| blablabla123 wrote:
| The movie industry unions definitely sounds more appealing than
| those of the steal industry for instance. But of course it's
| easier to rally for a cause in an industry that is doing well.
| I think unions need to be rethought and I'm curious how it will
| look like if the Google union actually happens.
|
| At the same time the Hollywood unions obviously were not there
| with all these scandals of the last years. Essentially it was
| both traditional and social media that helped with that.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| I don't know much about Hollywood, but clearly the biggest
| examples of abuse in recent years were all the examples that
| came out of the #metoo movement. What exactly did SAG do for
| all of Harvey Weinstein's victims for all those years that it
| was being swept under the rug? If not sexual abuse, what other
| kinds of abuse in Hollywood have these unions put a stop to?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The point of unions is obviously for employees to unite in
| order to strengthen their bargaining power.
|
| Engineers at Google are very well paid and have very nice perks
| (at least that the general perception), so I think what many
| people might wonder is what better deal do they feel they need
| strongly enough to unite in order to get it?
| trentnix wrote:
| Power. It's the hunger that is never satiated.
| adwww wrote:
| Presumably in their case a union offers a better way to voice
| their concerns over eg. objectionable business practices, or
| just affecting the role out of more routine policies - eg.
| around time tracking, remote working, childcare, etc.
| thu2111 wrote:
| The article is quite clear: they don't intend to unite to
| strengthen their bargaining power.
|
| "Arranged as a members-only union, the new organization won't
| seek collective bargaining rights to negotiate a new contract
| with the company"
|
| It's not really a union. It's a political faction that calls
| itself a union to benefit from laws protecting union members
| from being fired for "organising". The assumption was that
| unions would "organise" to benefit their workers via better
| pay or conditions, but that isn't the case here.
| madamelic wrote:
| >Engineers at Google are very well paid and have very nice
| perks (at least that the general perception), so I think what
| many people might wonder is what better deal do they feel
| they need strongly enough to unite in order to get it?
|
| Also hope to gosh that there is a membership rate cap.
|
| 1% of every Google engineer's salary every year is an absurd
| amount of money. I don't understand why Sally Joe making
| $200k needs to pay more for her protection than Billy Bob
| making $150k.
| refurb wrote:
| How else do you pay dozens of union leaders $500k salaries?
| Someone has to cough up the dough.
| pentagrama wrote:
| Unions are "Red scare" for many. I thinks it comes down to
| ideology.
|
| Pro capitalists view unions with skepticism or hostility
| because challenges the system, pro socialists view as a way to
| fight the power structures and injustice.
|
| Other people just don't want to be involved in unions because
| is a sensitive topic and are afraid to lost their jobs.
| thu2111 wrote:
| Nobody in this union is going to fight against "injustice".
| Look at their list of demands. It's indeed a red scare
| because they are really, really red. For example, refusing to
| work with the defence industry - which country in the world
| would benefit most from a damaged US/European military?
| China!
|
| We can see what kind of union this is by the fact that:
|
| 1. They aren't going to try and bargain collectively
|
| 2. Their announcement claims Timnit Gebru was fired and that
| was terrible, instead of the obvious truth that she said made
| obnoxious requests and said she'd resign unless she got them,
| then was told "OK, we accept your resignation". They're a
| brand new organisation and they're _already_ misrepresenting
| reality.
|
| In other words it's going to be nothing like the IBEW or
| whatever. It's yet another left-wing campaigning
| organisation, pretending to be a union to try and make the
| members un-fireable no matter how nasty they become.
| RichardCA wrote:
| The whole point of unions is that no one is subject to the
| vagaries of summary termination. But don't worry, I'm not
| holding my breath on this.
|
| But the left/right pendulum swings both ways. It would also
| protect people from the next kerfuffle over Cancel Culture.
|
| People should have the right to not be threatened with the
| removal of their livelihood for arbitrary reasons. I mean,
| there's nothing unreasonable in that position, and its
| merits can be examined outside of the left/right lens.
| [deleted]
| jiraticketmach wrote:
| > For example, I've had people tell me that they don't support
| unions in tech because they'll be "paid less", or less
| competent engineers will be promoted faster.
|
| This is something that has always amazed me.
|
| Your typical tech worker does a lot of unpaid overtime under
| the guidance of a manager whose only merit to management is
| being friends with someone. It also has to retrain him/herself
| for free on it's own spare time and by the time it reaches
| 35/40 it tends to be let go by not raising his/her salary
| anymore or by putting him/her in lower status position. (Not to
| mention working as a contractor for years, etc.). These are the
| kind of problems unions are expected to fight for.
|
| But every time someone mentions unions they go after the salary
| cap, time of service, etc, discourses.
| rhacker wrote:
| I see that time and again - people lump ALL unions in with the
| WORST unions for some reason. It's like any union that's had
| some success isn't really in the news.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Here's a bit of an implementation detail question I have
| wondered about unionizing in tech, within software engineering
| specifically - how would a union work in a field where the
| lines between managers and employees are so blurred? Most
| companies have a parallel IC track where the most senior ICs
| are paid more and are more senior at the company than many
| managers. And there are tech leads/team leads that have no
| reports and aren't managers but are in leadership positions.
|
| From what I understand, even middle-managers are usually not
| allowed to unionize or allowed to talk to other employees about
| unions. Where would the line be in tech? If you decide to
| switch from the IC to manager track, do you have to leave the
| union?
|
| Just the mere fact that this seems like such an odd
| distinction, because IC software engineers are generally
| treated just as well as if not better than managers, makes me
| step back and wonder what problem we would actually be trying
| to solve by unionizing within the engineering track. What would
| the tangible benefits be?
|
| On the other hand I'm already imagining of all sorts of
| potential downsides. A lot of tech companies tend to be very
| open about company details with employees. In my experience,
| most managers tend to work very collaboratively with their
| employees in terms of helping them set goals and figure out a
| path to getting a promotion. There often feels like there
| genuinely is alignment between the company and employees - if
| the company does well, employees tend to do well. Not just
| because they already own stock in the company, but also because
| companies tend to expand when they're doing well and this opens
| up opportunities to promote from within. I imagine all of these
| dynamics would completely change in a world with tech unions,
| where the employees and the company would be pitted against
| each other.
| pwned1 wrote:
| That will all be addressed in the take-it-or-leave-it 2,400
| page proposed contract.
| lokar wrote:
| I don't think they are in fact seeking a contract.
| ahepp wrote:
| Boeing has software engineer unions. They start at like, ~$70k
| and after a few years can get up to ~$90k (someone correct me
| if I'm off, but I don't think I'm very far off).
| jjcon wrote:
| So like half what Google pays? How much does their Union
| take?
| ahepp wrote:
| I certainly wouldn't consider it competitive. I don't know
| how much of it is union dues.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| A fairer comparison is probably to other aerospace
| companies and defense contractors.
| ahepp wrote:
| My first job at a defense contractor in the midwest
| started at $70k. This was an employee owned company, but
| my understanding is that salaries are fairly similar at
| other defense contractors. Interestingly, it got to the
| point where the government employees we worked next to
| made more than us. Usually the deal is they get great
| benefits, but lower pay. However, pay seemed to be pretty
| stagnant at my contractor (nice folks though).
|
| Taking the same salary to live near Seattle (Everett, I
| suppose, but the point stands) is a substantial pay cut.
|
| I now work at a different defense contractor, across the
| street from said Boeing plant and came in with ~3y
| experience for ~$110k. Certainly much lower than a true
| "tech company", but it was tens of thousands of dollars
| higher than where I'd fall on the Boeing pay scales.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| My most recent direct exposure to film unions was the 2007 WGA
| strike, which was the initial source of many of my fears about
| unions. The WGA didn't just say "our members aren't interested
| in working under these conditions"; they issued angry
| denouncements of anyone who did work, sabotaged production
| company efforts to find temporary replacements for guild
| writers, and recruited friends in adjacent jobs to strike with
| them. For over four months, the industry was just on pause, and
| there was nothing anyone could do about it until the union
| monopoly and producer monopoly reached an agreement.
|
| I have nothing but respect for the many workers who _have_ to
| unionize, because they won 't receive acceptable pay and
| working conditions unless they do. If the WGA feels that
| writers are in that position, I'm not going to tell them
| they're wrong. But I don't think software engineers are, and I
| have no interest in working in an environment where my
| coworkers might disappear for four months and demand nobody
| else step in to do their jobs.
| mmaunder wrote:
| SAG covers things like pension and healthcare which Google
| employees already have. It's necessary because of the piecemeal
| nature of work in film. Not every actor is wealthy - that's an
| edge case.
| microtherion wrote:
| Apple used to have easter eggs in its software, crediting
| individual engineers. Steve Jobs banned them, saying it would
| be unfair to give credit to individuals instead of the whole
| company, would make it easier for competitors to poach key
| engineers, etc.
|
| At the time, Jobs was also running Pixar, which never seemed to
| have problems in its movies to credit everybody down to the
| hairstylist of the second unit's caterer by name. Hmm... could
| it be that... they were unionized and we were not?
| anoncake wrote:
| > The CEO banned them, saying it would be unfair to give
| credit to individuals instead of the whole company,
|
| It sounds a lot less hypocritical this way.
| sriku wrote:
| We've done a /humans.txt for this in a now dead project.
|
| http://humanstxt.org
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| To my knowledge, Pixar is non-union.
| microtherion wrote:
| But they are still operating adjacent to a highly unionized
| industry, so parts of their products may have operated
| under union rules, and for others, they may have competed
| for employees that had a choice to work for unionized
| employers.
| Jach wrote:
| Video game studios routinely credit everyone, too. Though
| there's some politics involved (just like in movies) I won't
| get into.
|
| Could it be... that crediting is part of the industry norms
| in one case, and not the other? Absolutely nothing to do with
| unions.
| kenhwang wrote:
| Credit everyone by name or credit no one by name. It is
| inherently unfair to only credit key talent.
| karaterobot wrote:
| At least part of the reason not to credit individual
| engineers is that it damages the myth of the genius CEO.
| Ask most people who invented the iphone, they will not say
| "it was the work of hundreds of people at a dozen companies
| inside and outside Apple", they'll say "Steve Jobs".
| greggman3 wrote:
| It's also incredibly unfair to credit people not really
| related to the actual product. Should the names of all the
| employees of some bookstore in Wyoming be in the credits
| for Harry Potter books?
|
| The credits for God of War PS4 were 28 minutes long listing
| pretty much every employ of Sony in all countries down to
| caterers.
|
| Personally I find that insulting and unfair to the actual
| creative team that made the game.
| kenhwang wrote:
| Which is why credit appearance order and grouping is such
| a big deal and part of contract negotiation in films.
| Earlier appearances is supposed to signify importance
| (notice when a group of names isn't alphabetical), along
| with pre-title and marketing materials credits and the
| slideshow credits separate from the rolling credits.
| pulse7 wrote:
| Isn't the moral right of every (software) author that his
| name is mentioned next to the authored intellectual
| property (software)? This is even written in copyright laws
| of some countries...
| microtherion wrote:
| That's an excellent question. I believe non-visual moral
| rights are not recognized in the US, and I'm not sure
| they've ever been tested for software in any other Berne
| Convention signatories.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Unless as part of your employment, you agreed to an
| implicit copyright reassignment to the organization. In
| that instance, a "(c) Alphabet ####" is allowed.
| microtherion wrote:
| In countries that know true "Moral Rights", those rights
| are unassignable, so any such agreement is void. Your
| employer still gets all the money, but you get the "Look
| on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" clout if you want
| it.
| [deleted]
| trianglem wrote:
| My concerns are that it will have licensing requirements to be
| a computer programmer. Also I like to work a few years and then
| take like a year off, I don't think unions allow for this not
| working all the time structure.
| fovc wrote:
| One positive byproduct is that union membership is a quality
| signal for both employers and employees. I.e., as a producer, I
| know non-union candidates will be less experienced; as an
| employee I know a movie using non union labor is not going to
| run as smoothly. Could be good for the startup market if this
| additional data point becomes reliable
| bogomipz wrote:
| No, you have no such guarantee that a union candidate will be
| any more experienced than a non-union candidate. Using
| Hollywood and IATSE(The Editors Guild) as an example, some
| requirements in order to be considered for membership are:
|
| >"Editors must demonstrate 175 days of non-union work
| experience within the last three years, prior to the date of
| application." and
|
| ">Colorists must demonstrate 100 days of non-union work
| experience within the last two years, prior to the date of
| application."[1]
|
| Each of those is less than 3 months a year. I have many
| friends in that Union as well as SAG that have other pursuits
| but always make sure to do the minimum number of hours in
| order to maintain Union status in order to maintain the
| benefits. The only guarantee you have is that a union
| candidate has more hours that a non-union candidate working
| on union movie productions.
|
| >"... as an employee I know a movie using non union labor is
| not going to run as smoothly."
|
| Do you have any evidence that movie production in countries
| without unions runs less smoothly? For instance New Zealand's
| uniquely non-unionized film industry has produced many
| blockbusters - the "Lord of the Rings Trilogy" and "The
| Hobbit Trilogy" being good examples. Is there any evidence
| that actual "boots on the ground" movie production ran any
| less smoothly? Would the latter trilogy have even been
| attempted had the former trilogy been so problematic as a
| result of it being non-union labor?
|
| [1] https://www.editorsguild.com/Join/Join-West-Coast
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| This isn't true. It just creates artificial scarcity in the
| form of the union membership, similar to artificial scarcity
| of the Bar exam, and college degrees in general, but mere
| union membership has even less claim to indicate skill,
| competence, etc.
|
| When unions function as an exclusionary fraternity, they are
| actually pretty horrible. A good indicator of a well-
| functioning union is: the union doesn't have negative effects
| on people who don't join, and they are free to do their jobs
| side by side with union members and nobody cares, nobody
| judges anyone for their personal choice, no one discriminates
| on pay or opportunities.
| mhb wrote:
| So the way that educational outcomes have been improving as a
| result of union teachers with seniority being paid more?
| [deleted]
| criddell wrote:
| The union seeks out what the membership wants. Teachers
| want seniority to be protected and rewarded, so that's what
| they fight for.
| jskell725 wrote:
| What force prevents unions bosses from becoming corrupt
| and self serving; just like we can agree a corporate boss
| can become? It's silly to pretend they just "always work"
| criddell wrote:
| Who is pretending they always work? Does something have
| to be perfect in order to be worth pursuing?
| jskell725 wrote:
| You state that "the union seeks out what the membership
| wants" and I note ( to no argument) that this surely only
| happens sometimes. Other times they seek other things;
| perhaps not to the benefit of their workers.
|
| I'm not sure all teachers like the fact that seniority is
| king, and I'm also not sure that it is in fact a Net
| Benefit to teachers as a whole.
|
| This doesn't make unions not worth pursuing; it just
| means that we should be appropriately skeptical and not
| make blanket statements about how they surely operate.
| criddell wrote:
| > I'm not sure all teachers like the fact that seniority
| is king
|
| Unions don't require unanimity.
|
| > not make blanket statements
|
| Do I really need to add modifiers to everything I say to
| indicate that I'm not speaking in absolutes?
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Educational outcome is mainly due to income of parents,
| nothing else even comes close to matter as much.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > as a producer, I know non-union candidates will be less
| experienced;
|
| The downside of unions is that they're functionally a
| protection racket.
|
| Getting into the union isn't easy because union members don't
| want to dilute their clout.
|
| Being outside of the union makes it harder to get good work
| because the union will literally invest effort in shaming
| companies that hire you.
|
| It's fun to imagine the benefits of being inside a union, but
| we need to remember that creating the union will make life
| worse for those outside of it (young people, workers new to
| the industry).
| throway1gjj wrote:
| In addition, I know union workers labor will cost more and be
| less efficient
| bitcharmer wrote:
| Genuine question as I don't know that industry at all. How
| does being a member of a union imply more experience?
| kenhwang wrote:
| The unions (edit: film industry) require a certain amount
| of work experience to join and some have different levels
| of membership depending on how much work you do after
| joining.
|
| Because everyone prefers union workers, it creates a
| situation where the non-union worker has to get noticed
| somehow (nepotism or exceptional work) to convince someone
| to take a risk and hire them to earn enough work to gain
| union membership.
| humanrebar wrote:
| It's worth pointing out that in those situations unions
| aren't better for _all_ workers. Also notice there 's a
| strong gig economy component to establishing professional
| credentials.
| kenhwang wrote:
| Of course. Which can be evidenced by the working
| conditions in the film industry for the typical staff and
| the lack of diversity at the top.
| jcims wrote:
| >Because everyone prefers union workers
|
| Everyone? What union are you talking about?
| kenhwang wrote:
| Everyone in the US film industry for these unions:
| https://castifi.com/2020/03/24/list-of-film-industry-
| unions/
|
| There's way more union members than there is work. So if
| the pay's the same for union or non-union (not much
| either way), why wouldn't you go with union labor?
| frewsxcv wrote:
| > The unions require a certain amount of work experience
| to join and some have different levels of membership
| depending on how much work you do after joining.
|
| To users who are following along who aren't familiar,
| this is not how all unions works. Presumably the
| commenter is talking about "trade unions" which is one of
| many types of unions.
| throwaway316943 wrote:
| I look forward to a future where bright young engineers
| spend their twenties bussing tables while trying to get
| into the software guild.
| nitrogen wrote:
| How long will it be before I have to wait for a union React dev
| to open a PR on the frontend as a backend dev, and a union DBA
| to write a new SELECT statement for me, and a union CSS dev to
| shift a header three pixels to the right, and a union
| mathematician to approve my simple arithmetic ?
| [deleted]
| OJFord wrote:
| > You have vocally supportive multi-millionaire card-carrying
| members of the Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild, and the
| Directors Guild to name a few.
|
| I'm not familiar with that industry (nor the US) but those
| sound more like professional bodies than unions? I am a Member
| of the IET; I wouldn't join a union.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| While I would prefer a union in the US, I do believe it will be
| extremely toxic itself in current SV manner. I am situated in a
| country where unions are common, but tech doesn't have one
| because working conditions are good due to it being a sellers
| market for work.
|
| Tech companies behaved in a way that they deserve
| uncompromising worker representation. But I believe it will
| currently end in a group of sociopathic individuals that will
| put a strain on tech. I don't mind to be proved otherwise, but
| I don't see the wrong people getting elected to represent
| workers.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _I hear a lot of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes
| about what unions are for and who they serve_
|
| Unfortunately, through my own experience being in one &
| observing other unions, they often end up serving the
| organization of the union itself. They may still work for the
| workers, but also end up making decisions that are better for
| the union than for the workers.
|
| Right now, my kids are learning remotely. However, the school
| district has encouraged teachers themselves to still report to
| their classroom to teach from there because seeing that
| environment lends at least a little bit more normalcy to the
| experience. You might agree or disagree, but the teachers have
| the choice. However, teachers are being told & subtly bullied
| by the union into not doing this for some vague justification
| that it weakens the union. At least one member I know of has
| said they're teaching like this, but they hope the union
| doesn't find out because they would "get in trouble".
|
| I think unions can be a good & important tool in equalizing the
| power imbalance between an individual worker and their larger
| employers. Unfortunately, those who seek & rise to position of
| authority within the union structure are often those who end up
| seeing the union are a "good" unto itself rather than serving
| the members & their wishes.
| [deleted]
| racl101 wrote:
| worker to the union: "it was said you would destroy the
| oppressors, not join them!"
| JediWing wrote:
| This isn't a power trip by union leadership/ "the
| organization of the union itself" though?
|
| It's a real concern about the safety and working conditions,
| and how a lack of a unified front can lead to fissures when
| negotiating that could actually hurt a majority of union
| members.
|
| The unions members probably mostly prefer work from home due
| to safety concerns. Should the school district wish to demand
| all teachers report to the building, the negotiation position
| of the union is significantly weakened if the administration
| can say "well 25% of your membership is already in the
| building" as a justification for denying hazard pay, further
| health and safety precautions, etc.
| ineedasername wrote:
| The schools are sanitized nightly and those who go in
| literally don't have to see anyone else, and by policy are
| not supposed to.
|
| _" Unified front"_ That is not the purpose of the union.
| The union exists to serve it's members. If serving it's
| members might be slightly more difficult if it actually
| accommodates the choices of the members it serves, well
| that's it's job. It's job is not to make it's job easier,
| it's to serve the members. If the district tries to
| pressure other members because some make a certain choice,
| or not provide a safe working environment, _That is the
| fight the union should fight._ Not bullying members against
| making the choice the members feels is the right one to
| best serve the students.
|
| The _possibility_ of adversarial action by the school
| district is insufficient to justify the union 's actions,
| especially when, in the case of my school district, the
| district has otherwise been very responsive to the concerns
| of the union with respect to health & safety protocols.
| abduhl wrote:
| no man you don't get it, the union exists to protect the
| workers and therefore anything a worker does contrary to
| the union's position is against the worker's own interest
| by definition
|
| just keep paying your dues, shut the fuck up, and we'll
| take care of the rest
| JediWing wrote:
| Is the union preventing teachers from going into the
| school? Is it not OK for the union to have a position on
| the matter and communicate it to their members?
|
| Why is it ok for the administration to say "we prefer but
| don't require you to come in" but not ok for the union to
| say "actually, we prefer but don't require you to stay
| home"?
|
| A unified front is EXACTLY the purpose of a union. The
| threat of collective action by the entire workforce is
| what unions derive their power from.
| toast0 wrote:
| > not ok for the union to say "actually, we prefer but
| don't require you to stay home"?
|
| If I prefer to work from the building, and the union is
| pressuring[1] me to stay home, that tells me the union is
| not working for me.
|
| If the union were working for me, it might demand that
| work from home be allowed for those who prefer or need
| it, and that work from the building be done in safe
| conditions.
|
| This is my problem with unions; it's fine if you fit with
| the majority, but if you don't you're paying a portion of
| your salary to prop up an organization between you and
| your employer that's actively pushing for things you
| don't want. It's just a different windmill to tilt at.
|
| [1] When the union expresses a preference, and people are
| worried about the union hearing that they didn't follow
| the preference, that's pressure.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I don't understand how you can claim that a unified front
| is their purposes. Their purpose is to serve their
| workers. Forcing all workers to behave the same way seems
| a poor interpretation of that duty.
|
| Otherwise, sure it's fine to have a position on an issue
| and communicate it to members. What is _not_ fine is to
| imply to members that if they make their own choice then
| the union will never support them should they have a
| problem, even for an unrelated issue, essentially
| stripping them of union support. This is what I meant by
| bullying, and have myself witnessed.
|
| But if you insist that a unified front, rather than
| supporting workers, is their purpose then we
| fundamentally disagree, and I'll leave things by pointing
| out that the "unified front" can be to support worker
| choice & flexibility.
| JediWing wrote:
| Their purpose is multifaceted, but without a (mostly)
| unified front on matters they wish to bargain around,
| their ability to best serve their members during
| bargaining is compromised.
|
| Threats of withholding union protection for making an
| informed choice would be shocking (and likely illegal!).
|
| I don't pretend to know what you've seen and heard, but
| in most cases where "threats" were made, my bet would be
| that a statement like "if you want the union to be around
| to help protect you, listening to our guidance is the
| best course", was interpreted as a threat (singular
| specific you), rather than a general statement on the
| importance of how vital solidarity is for the survival of
| the union and its collective bargaining
| power(general/plural you).
| ineedasername wrote:
| Shocking, but not uncommon in my anecdotal experience. Of
| course it might not be universal. In my experience it
| went as follows:
|
| Union members automatically pay dues. They have the
| _option_ of paying more dues. Someone who paid the
| automatic dues went to the union for help. Each time,
| they were urged to opt in to paying more dues. They chose
| not to, and were left waiting for help. When they finally
| chose to increase their dues, the help suddenly
| materialized.
|
| And sure, most speech surrounding the bullying isn't
| direct. Would you expect it to be explicit? That simply
| isn't how any remotely intelligent person makes illegal
| threats. But it's pretty easy to pick up on the tone of
| _" hey it's a nice job you have here. It would be a shame
| if something were to happen to it"_
|
| I support unions, I think they provide a net benefit to
| workers, but power structures frequently attract people
| more interested in wielding the power than in the purpose
| that power is suppose to serve. I see too much of a
| tendency in supporters of unions to overlook this fact,
| with any criticism dismissed as "you don't support the
| workers!". (Note: I'm not accusing you of that. We appear
| to be having a reasonable discussion)
| phil21 wrote:
| > And sure, most speech surrounding the bullying isn't
| direct.
|
| Having been in two unions in a prior life, I'd say the
| only reason this is true is due to lack of in-person
| communication. Anything documentable will be kept to
| semi-acceptable levels. The true (daily) abuse comes when
| they return to the classroom. These folks need to prepare
| for some bullying.
|
| Most teachers defying the union on this will not make it
| more than another year in that district once classrooms
| return would be my uninformed bet. It will be a mission
| of every other union member at each school to make their
| everyday existence a living hell.
|
| Yes, I have very poor taste in my mouth when it comes to
| my experiences with unions. I certainly recognize what
| they've accomplished and could still accomplish; but
| until they stop existing as corrupt rackets to protect
| the lowest common denominator employee they are going to
| be a hard sell to much of the US who has dealt with such
| creatures.
| abduhl wrote:
| of course, just like how when the mob says "if you want
| our guys to be around to help protect you, listening to
| our guidance is the best course" it's not a threat but a
| general statement on the importance of community
| solidarity or how when trump says "if you want our tax
| dollars and support for your state, finding those extra
| votes is the best course" it's not a threat but a general
| statement on the financial realities of federal spending
| ineedasername wrote:
| "Hey NY Governor, nice state you have there. Shame if it
| didn't get any vaccines"
| bjourne wrote:
| Labor laws and collective bargaining are two very complicated
| topics. Perhaps the union gave the teacher you talked to a
| perfectly rational explanation but it came out as "vague
| justification" to them because they didn't understand it? I
| think that is more plausible than the union demanding
| teachers to work-from-home for no good reason.
| Aunche wrote:
| Hollywood unions work because they force an artificial
| monopoly. SAG requires productions to hire a certain percentage
| of union actors, which screws over non-union members. Without
| this market manipulation, unions are largely useless because
| the market will always have room for non-union members.
|
| This doesn't matter too much for Hollywood because plenty of
| people are willing to write/act for peanuts, but I don't want
| to see these in-group/out-group in tech.
| biffstallion wrote:
| Google keeps rabble rousing when it comes to certain political
| issues of nonsense. Here Google, how does it feel to have have
| it back onto you now.
| Karunamon wrote:
| > _because they 'll be "paid less", or less competent engineers
| will be promoted faster._
|
| The first thing is strictly true. Every union takes dues. It is
| _not_ strictly true that pay /compensation will increase in all
| cases.
|
| The second thing is true a lot of the time. Unions tend to wind
| up using seniority as the primary metric for positions and
| compensations.
|
| Why ignore those things?
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Unions create artificial scarcity. This is good for themselves
| but bad for everyone else. If I'm not a member of SAG then I
| cannot offer my services at competing rates because SAG has cut
| me out, regardless of my skill level. This creates a moat
| between the poor and working class. They contractually protect
| themselves from being undercut by the lower classes,
| perpetuating wealth inequality.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Of course wealthy Hollywood celebrities support unions: they
| make it harder for outside talent to compete with them.
|
| And they absolutely do limit the work that union members are
| carrying out. To name a fairly recent example, that's how Dr.
| Horrible's Sing-along Blog came into existence, making it a web
| series allowed Joss Whedon to still make something without
| running afoul of the Writer's Guild strike rules.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| quotemstr wrote:
| > Screen Actors Guild,
|
| The SAG isn't a typical union. The SAG constitution [1]
| contains a special provision requiring a supermajority to ask
| for a pay cap or to call a strike. Acting, like tech, is
| largely meritocratic with a huge talent dispersion. A
| prohibition on pay caps is necessary.
|
| I somehow doubt the Google tech activists will be copying the
| SAG's meritocratic philosophy. Every single thing I've seen
| from Google activists and their ilk is about prioritizing
| technical excellence way behind having the correct ideology.
| The people behind the Google unionization effort are not
| genuinely concerned about working conditions. They really want
| two things:
|
| - to be gatekeepers that keep their ideological opponents out
| of big tech companies (even moreso than now), and
|
| - to gain power to pressure big tech companies into punishing
| their ideological opponents (for example, banning advertising
| from certain websites, refusing cloud services to oil and gas
| industries, censorship intensification, and large donations to
| their favored organizations).
|
| If you'd been at Google and watched all this unfold over the
| past few years, it'd be obvious to you what these people are
| really about.
|
| [1]
| https://www.sagaftra.org/files/sa_documents/2019%20Constitut...
| reaperducer wrote:
| _People often seem to think of unions as being purely blue-
| collar operations, and this just isn 't true._
|
| If you need an example to back this up, the million-dollar
| television news anchors in the United States are all union.
| lumost wrote:
| I think Unions could go a long way to ensuring engineers get a
| fair (meaning transparent) equity deal.
|
| I've certainly been taken for a ride before, with one Series C+
| company's board delaying all equity grants for a year because
| they didn't want to pay for 409A valuation until they raised
| more money ( they never raised more money, everyone got
| screwed).
| briandear wrote:
| Except when the unions work to keep non-Union people from
| working or have ridiculous rules that make producing a film far
| more time consuming and expensive than it need be.
|
| Have you ever worked on a film set? Want to drive film to the
| airport? Can't get paid to do it unless you are in the
| teamsters. Want to sweep a floor? That's the janitor Union.
| "Hey light guy, could you bring me that empty film canister?"
| Nope. The light guy isn't in the camera Union. Hey camera guys,
| can you tape down that cord you keep tripping over? Nope.
| That's the gaffer's job. Are you a brand new sound recordist
| and want to worn on a Union production? Cant do it unless you
| join the union first. Need one guy to do a job? If the Union
| requires three, you end up paying three people to do the job of
| one.
|
| Hollywood unions are better than the auto workers or teacher
| unions, but it's far from "good."
| spodek wrote:
| Hollywood makes a valid comparison for being nearby, but the
| more meaningful comparisons are to more unionized countries
| like in Europe or America in the past, where unions increased
| productivity, safety, and living standards.
| [deleted]
| sethammons wrote:
| I feel like that all happened a hundred years ago and many of
| the protections they offered are now backed by law.
| [deleted]
| ericol wrote:
| I find really, really baffling the general position in the US
| regarding unions. It is like there's a general discourse that
| they are a bad thing, just like with "that other" thing (cough
| socialism cough).
|
| This is even more strange when you find out about police unions
| - that are widespread -, and what their power is. From my point
| of view actions of police union are usually borderline "mob-
| like" (as in, I mostly hear about them when they save the necks
| of abusing and / or corrupted officers). It's like people think
| unions are generally bad, but then they have police unions
| everywhere and nobody bats an eye... even when their actions
| are on the shadowy side of things.
|
| I didn't know about the film industry, thought (Even thought I
| remember about the writer's guild strike of a few years back).
|
| Just like democracy, unions might be the worst solution, except
| for all the others.
| drstewart wrote:
| I find it ironic you rail on the US thinking unions are bad
| when you spend half your post talking about a union you think
| is bad.
| csharptwdec19 wrote:
| > I find really, really baffling the general position in the
| US regarding unions. It is like there's a general discourse
| that they are a bad thing, just like with "that other" thing
| (cough socialism cough).
|
| I'm from the 'birthplace' of US Auto unions. This part of
| your reply is actually a good place to start the explanation,
| because that's actually the perception of some other unions,
| and at times there is _historical_ context to that.
|
| > From my point of view actions of police union are usually
| borderline "mob-like" (as in, I mostly hear about them when
| they save the necks of abusing and / or corrupted officers).
|
| Two points:
|
| - The UAW and Teamsters in particular had ties to actual mob
| organizations in the past. "Jimmy Hoffa" is a name to look up
| if you'd like an example of what some people think of when
| they think of unions.
|
| - The examples you give of corruption/status quo in police
| unions are present in the Auto shops as well; whenever I
| heard a story from an auto worker about why 'they' did not
| like the unions, it was usually a story like what you said; a
| worker getting 'protected' by the union when their actions
| were unsafe. IOW even some of the people -in- the union see
| it as a broken institution.
| xtian wrote:
| Are these negative characteristics you're describing from
| before or after Taft-Hartley?
| compiler-guy wrote:
| The mafia influence over the Teamsters Union was at its
| height in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Well, well after
| Taft-Hartley.
|
| The UAW and related issues absolutely killing the
| domestic US auto industry is late 1970s, early 1980s. It
| wasn't just unions there, but that was a major
| contributing factor.
|
| Police unions create issues today.
|
| Taft-Hartley barely even registers.
| xtian wrote:
| Taft-Hartley was a decisive stroke in the effort to
| defang and depoliticize labor unions in the US (e.g.,
| outlawing solidarity strikes and political strikes,
| expulsion of communists). Should we be surprised that
| kneecapping the militant labor struggle led to the
| corruption of its leftover power structures?
|
| We should definitely abolish police unions, though.
| jcims wrote:
| Just a few opinions here, focusing on the negatives to try to
| explain the 'general discourse that they are a bad thing'.
|
| It's in part because the US has a storied history of corrupt
| unions and their affiliation with the mafia and organized
| crime.
|
| There's a related facet in that, to an outside observer, the
| UAW chased American automakers out of the country through
| unsustainable demands for wages and benefits.
|
| Another part comes from the direct experience of many
| Americans as members of unions and some portion (we can argue
| percentages) of those people arrive at the conclusion that
| the union at best isn't worth the dues and at worse is
| pathological, in some cases by protecting underperformers and
| in others by lacking a spine when it is needed. This is where
| my personal experience the Teamsters and vicarious experience
| via my wife's membership in the NEA landed me.
|
| It's also in part because many Americans have direct
| experience working alongside unions and some (again we can
| argue percentages) become frustrated with the rules and the
| pace. I've had some experience with this in the HVAC industry
| and in home building. I was already tainted a bit by my
| experience as a member above so I'm sure there was some
| confirmation bias here.
|
| Lastly America has a pretty strong ethos, or myth if you
| prefer, of individualism and some unions and union members
| lay on a very thick collectivist twang in their communication
| that can be off-putting.
|
| I'm not ideologically opposed to unions in any way, I just
| haven't seen one do a great job in the US. I hope Kickstarter
| is able to pull off a good example and am all for workers
| shooting their shot if they feel it is a good idea. I'm just
| not particularly optimistic.
| delfinom wrote:
| >It's in part because the US has a storied history of
| corrupt unions and their affiliation with the mafia and
| organized crime.
|
| The joke is, that isn't even history. Mafia families do
| still exist in NY and everyone knows they own both the
| unions and the companies.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _For example, I 've had people tell me that they don't
| support unions in tech because they'll be "paid less", or less
| competent engineers will be promoted faster._
|
| Yeah, a bizarre line of reasoning. Footballers first unionized
| in 1907 and haven't looked back since. Today, your average
| footballer (plying their trade in the upper tiers of English
| football) makes more in a month than most tech engineers make
| in a year (granted careers are short and there are many more
| elite engineers than there are elite football players, but
| still, I don't think unionization had any effect on their
| salaries).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Footballers%27_As...
|
| See also:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Tennis_Professi...
| sjg007 wrote:
| In America, baseball unionization was what drove higher
| salaries.
| astura wrote:
| Also the minor leagues aren't unionized and they make
| poverty wages.
|
| https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/baseball-
| broshu...
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| > Footballers first unionized in 1907 and haven't looked back
| since
|
| Incorrect, the first footballer's union was from 1898 [1].
|
| > I don't think unionization had any effect on their salaries
|
| Despite the existence of the union, clubs could impose a
| salary cap on players well into the 1960s, and could trade
| them like slaves under the "retain-and-transfer" system [2]
| until the EU forbade that practice in the 1990s [3].
|
| All in all, football is a very bad example for the success of
| unions. Unions helped jack shit to get players out of an
| exploitative situation - every improvement was hard-won in
| courts by individual footballers.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_Footballers%27_
| Uni...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retain_and_transfer_system
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling
| pmyteh wrote:
| The abolition of the maximum wage was arguably a
| consequence of organisation by the PFA under Jimmy Hill. I
| agree that the picture is mixed.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > and could trade them like slaves under the "retain-and-
| transfer"
|
| Don't you see a little bit of an issue with this wording?
| Namely that said players were paid for their labor and
| could quit playing football at any time?
| grumple wrote:
| The NBPA has overseen a huge increase in NBA player's wages
| over the past few decades, both at the top and for the
| average or minimum player. Yes, there's a salary cap, but
| that actually helps the vast majority of players, because
| otherwise Lebron would get paid 200M/year and the
| minimum/average players would get basically nothing, and it
| also ensures competitiveness.
|
| A salary cap is not a reason unions are bad when the salary
| cap is 800x the average person's income...
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| But when Jimmy Hill became secretary the PFA did succeed in
| vastly improving things early 1960's
| dionidium wrote:
| For what it's worth, Major League Baseball also has a union
| and one of its primary effects is to fuck over "new hires" by
| artificially transferring wages to older players based on
| seniority-based "service time" provisions.
| lawnchair_larry wrote:
| It's silly to compare tech unions to sports teams. There is
| usually only one major league in a country, and the team that
| signs you owns you like property. You do what the coach says
| or you sit on the bench until your contract expires and then
| don't get re-signed. It's not like tech, where if your Google
| manager so much as gives you a dirty look you can just walk
| over to facebook and have a new job by Monday. This alone is
| far more powerful than anything a union can provide.
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| > This is because those unions are serving a very different
| purpose to the stereotypical union some engineers seem to fear.
| SAG, the DGA, and the WGA aren't guaranteeing hours or limiting
| pay: they're simply trying to curb abuse in what it a very
| abusive industry, and putting in place procedures to protect
| members and resolve grievances.
|
| This is an important point, and one I haven't thought of before
| - I think Americans often think of Unions as organizations that
| prevent layoffs and gain ever higher benefits, to the detriment
| of the company. Indeed, this announcement confirms their goals
| are slightly different from a typical union's goals:
|
| > Its goal will be to tackle ongoing issues like pay disparity,
| retaliation, and controversial government contracts.
| umvi wrote:
| > and controversial government contracts.
|
| So basically this is a political union forcing the company to
| adopt certain political stances (i.e. to force the company to
| refuse DoD or ICE contracts)
| giantg2 wrote:
| I wouldn't look to SAG as a good example. The format of that
| industry is very different from most "typical" jobs,
| specifically tech work. I would also suggest looking at the the
| recent SAG healthcare fiasco.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| So it's not a good example for benefits, but a good example
| for problems?
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's an example that is fundamentally different from tech
| work, specifically google. It's a gig based industry with
| massively high income inequality. Not to mention it's an
| industry level/dominate union vs a company level union.
|
| Yes, the idea for health benefits was great. But now we see
| that the SAG is just like corporation - cutting benefits
| because the highly paid big wigs don't want to pay for
| them.
| kenhwang wrote:
| I think it's the exact opposite problem the tech industry
| has.
|
| The film industry has way more talent supply than the
| employment demands, which naturally suppresses pay. The
| guilds/unions are a way to increase scarcity to maintain
| pay and ease hiring.
|
| The tech industry has much less talent supply and much much
| much more employment demand. Tech might be better modeled
| after high skilled trade unions (which have a labor
| shortage) than the comparatively lower skilled
| film/auto/factory unions (which have a labor surplus).
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I disagree with this point to some extent. Look at video
| game devs, who have similar problems where there's a lot
| of labor supply enabling abuses. Also look at the abuse
| capable of h1b visa holders.
| muzaffarpur wrote:
| Companies are exploiting because united states want them
| to. There is a reason why a group of people(mostly
| Indians) are kept into the state of limbo. The fake
| fraternity angle is BS. Even the immigrant
| communities(demonstrated from Iranian immigrants protest
| against S386) want to keep it this way, so few can get
| bigger pie at the expanse of other. Everyone needs to
| know and understand the truth behind the so called
| fraternity. Would an Asian/Indian/Chinese would get same
| kind of protection as compared to their white/black
| counterparts. I doubt it.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot
| of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what
| unions are for and who they serve.
|
| This statement holds true regardless of which side of the
| argument you're on.
|
| The modern discourse around unions seems to revolve around a
| lot of stereotypes that aren't entirely accurate.
|
| Yes, unions can be effective for changing working conditions.
| However, it's important to remember who those unions serve.
|
| The most common misconception is that unions serve the general
| public in pushing back against the corporation. Not true. The
| unions serve existing employees of those companies, usually as
| prioritized by seniority.
|
| This is a great situation if you are already a senior member of
| that company, but it's not as beneficial if you're a young
| person trying to break into that industry or move up within a
| company.
|
| The screen actors guild is a flawed analogy because film
| productions are very time limited operations. This would be
| like Google creating a new company for every project and
| picking which workers to "hire" into the new company. This
| conveniently skirts all of the issues around seniority that
| unions tend to bring to a company, because people are only
| involved in productions at whatever level they've been hired
| into. It's also not as easy to break into the SAG as you might
| think. Ask young actors about the hoops they have to jump
| through and fees they have to pay to get into the SAG at the
| beginning of their careers.
|
| For examples of how unions don't always benefit employees,
| especially younger employees, listen to This American Life's
| podcast about how bad teachers can't be fired due to union
| rules in some districts, so they're kept on the payroll and
| placed into an empty room to avoid running afoul of the union.
| Now imagine how much better off we'd all be (kids, aspiring
| teachers who could take those jobs, taxpayers) if the unions
| allowed the school district to simply fire the bad teachers and
| hire good teachers without fighting the union.
| eternalban wrote:
| Hollywood is in the content business. As an informative
| precedent in context of a professional union's unintended
| consequences (or misused powers), we should look at what role
| (if any) has the AGU played in censorship, uniformity of views
| propagated, negative ethnic stereotypes that persist in
| Hollywood product content, etc.
| pacificat0r wrote:
| So these are really good examples, but I still don't understand
| what unions can do for 1% of someone's pay. They kind of look
| like subscription services, or worse places you have to join or
| else there are unintended consequences from other examples
| where they mention looking at union membership as an indicator
| of some experience (so kind of like a tax).
|
| The screen actors guild and all the movie-related guilds seem
| interesting, but aren't those kind of like freelancers more
| than closer to fully employed people? I guess it would be
| beneficial for salary negotiation for non-software engineers
| and maybe contractos, but I don't really see the incentive to
| join one as a fulltime software engineer.
|
| Maybe I have a bad opinion on unions due to how they operated
| in my country that's not US :D.
| avianlyric wrote:
| In theory the unions should be a place to organise employees,
| to help improve working conditions. But I suspect for most
| people the real benefit will be protection from miscarriages
| of justice.
|
| I've personally seen people put through the wringer by HR
| teams, and even when the HR team acknowledges they've fucked
| up, there's no apologies or an attempt to make things right.
| Unions can provide protection in these case, whether that's
| access to legal help, or just having a 3rd party on your side
| sitting in on employee dispute meetings.
|
| I think a lot of people don't appreciate how badly they can
| be screwed over by a HR team, accidentally or maliciously,
| until they find themselves in a meeting with three members of
| the HR team, with no one telling them what's going on. At
| which point, it's already too late to save yourself. A union
| gives you recourse and support, something invaluable when it
| you're up against the entire HR team.
| dleslie wrote:
| HR works for your employer, they are not your friend and
| are not on your side; this should be common knowledge.
|
| There are organizations that provide legal services to
| labour which do not require one to be a member of a union.
| It might be better for all if the money spent on dues was
| instead contributed to an organization that doesn't
| discriminate.
| datavirtue wrote:
| This is how it works with the nurses unions. My mom got
| accused by another nurse of intentionally hurting a
| patient. Without the union she would have been on her own
| to deal with HR and management who would have just gotten
| rid of her as a matter of their convenience. Nothing of
| substance was found out of the investigations. The union
| worked. It will also protect her against any future
| political repercussions arising from the accusations and
| investigation. The police were involved and everything, no
| way in hell an employee would survive that without union
| representation.
| vegardx wrote:
| My union membership more than paid for itself this year. My
| employer wanted to defer merit increase due to covid and all
| the uncertainty. The union called them on the bluff.
| sethammons wrote:
| Was it really a bluff? How do you know if growth projects
| or other company investments had to be canceled?
| vegardx wrote:
| We know because we got the merit increase. Do you think
| they'd give up so easily if they had a good case against
| it?
| sethammons wrote:
| For the same reason little shops pay protection money to
| gangs. Just because the money went somewhere does not
| mean it was the best place. Absolutely, the company
| likely was acting in bad faith, but it is not guaranteed.
| Maybe merit increases means they have to cut something
| else that affects their ability to complete, or maybe it
| just means less bonus for executives. Just saying that
| there are two sides. It is not always an evil company. I
| guess this is an argument for collective bargaining. I've
| never experienced its benefits however, and have seen
| negative effects.
| vegardx wrote:
| That's a lot of whataboutism.
|
| It's not like it's in the best interest of the workers to
| see the company go belly up. Or be less competitive. If
| the company can show that this is why they're defering
| merit pay there's no reason to believe that unions won't
| accept it and agree with them.
|
| It gives employees leverage, and healthy competition in
| all aspects should just strengthen the company.
| dleslie wrote:
| That really depends on whether the union is larger than
| the company it's making demands of. It may be in their
| best interest to bleed a company faster if it will yield
| greater benefits over the now-altered life span of the
| company.
|
| There's a real consideration of whether X% of employee
| compensation over N years is better than the same over M
| years.
| yeahwhatever10 wrote:
| Of all the comments in here this has to be the most
| naive.
| refurb wrote:
| Well US auto manufacturers went bankrupt because the
| choice was: 1) agree to maintain unaffordable union
| benefits or 2) end up in a worse situation with a
| prolonged strike that hurts the business even more.
|
| So they kicked the can down the road and chose 1 until
| they just went bankrupt and the courts allowed contracts
| to be renegotiated and high cost union employees to be
| replaced with younger employees at a far lower
| compensation package.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| If a company defers a merit increase of their own
| employees for "other company investments" then I as a
| worker would absolutely want a union to call them out on
| it. A company wouldn't even have money for those
| investments without the merit of the employees.
| lawnchair_larry wrote:
| And the employees wouldn't even have jobs to complain
| about if the company had not made the investments to grow
| large enough to hire them. So that's kind of one-sided.
|
| Just because the union made them do it, doesn't mean it
| was a bluff or the right decision. And if those
| investments pan out, the stock gains are often worth
| substantially more to the employee than the token merit
| increase.
| kenhwang wrote:
| The film industry operates on a gig-by-gig basis. Imagine
| drafting a legal contract for every sprint. Because you're
| working at a different company every sprint. Or
| interviewing/hiring new people every sprint. Kinda how the
| film industry works.
|
| Way easier to just have standardized union contracts, pay
| rates, and expectations for everyone involved and have the
| union provide benefits.
| 3np wrote:
| One thing I can see a SE guild improving is clarity and
| consistency with things like license compliance,
| unenforceable attempts to restrict of ownership and
| development of software created in ones free time, assistance
| in stock options negotiations, and other things that
| regularly come up here.
| pacificat0r wrote:
| Ownership of free-time developed stuff is likely the only
| thing that has peaked my interest. maybe unions aren't that
| bad after all. Tho one would hope this type of thing would
| just be covered by the law without requiring an union to
| handle, but heh, world is imperfect.
|
| I remember when working in games you couldn't even write
| blogposts about any type of unrelated to programming thing
| (e.g. not even about playing guitar) and that was super
| frustrating. Likely those clauses weren't enforceble but
| still anoying.
| grumple wrote:
| Firstly, unions prevent abuse. This includes unjust
| termination (for a million different reasons), handles
| disputes with supervisors where the individual employee
| otherwise has no power, such as the HN post the other day
| about the extremely abusive Apple team, or the many things we
| hear about sexism and racism. On HN and reddit, every time we
| talk about these issues the comments are always "find a new
| job", "don't bother with hr", "hr is not your friend". With a
| union, the union IS your friend and they make it so you DON'T
| have to find a new job. For devs, with our extremely painful
| and broken interviewing process, this is great.
|
| Second, they negotiate for higher wages and benefits. Given
| that tech is churning out billionaire ceos, we certainly
| could be paid more. I have never met a dev who said "I don't
| want to be paid more". Yes, we make decent wages, but we
| still produce far more value than what we're paid for.
|
| Thirdly, they negotiate for better working conditions.
| Examples from the past were things like the 8 hour workday,
| safety measures, etc. I suspect there's a lot of opportunity
| for growth here in the tech industry, through I haven't had
| enough coffee to come up with a list. The 8 hour workday is
| certainly one of them, as I've heard endless nightmares of
| people being forced to working extremely long hours. The lack
| of overtime in our industry is a big deal, and "get a new
| job" is a crappy answer and hard to do in practice,
| especially if you're being worked to death.
| lithos wrote:
| While not union myself watching how IBEW (international
| brotherhood of electrical workers) works, it ends up working
| well for all involved parties. For workers pay is kept
| higher, benefits stay active between jobs, and benefits stay
| unchanged between jobs at different companies. Companies also
| gain the ability to support surges/drops in manning
| requirements (without ruining life's of workers), and know
| workers have a minimum level of training (along with that
| training not leaving workers a debt addled depressive). I
| also see the best workers rising through the ranks, and bad
| ones either never actually entering the union or quitting
| when they realize they're not going anywhere.
|
| Not every union strangles their company like automotive
| unions. Though those unions start to look better looking at
| nonunion companies like Tesla which somehow manages to pay
| their workers less, in one of the most expensive areas in the
| world, and maintaining an accident rate that would shut a
| union shop down.
|
| Also it makes sense that Google would fight unions. Since the
| current implementation of unions for SV companies has been
| Kickstarter. And that union mostly exists to drive profit to
| their competitors by choosing what is allowed on Kickstarter.
| Something like that for Google would just end up making an
| easy paper trail for a prosecutor to follow for SV platform
| bias.
| pacificat0r wrote:
| >I also see the best workers rising through the ranks, and
| bad ones either never actually entering the union or
| quitting when they realize they're not going anywhere.
|
| This doesn't sound like an advantage for software
| engineers. Surely unions can't decide on someone's
| competency. It kind of raises a red flag about potential
| gatekeeping methods (e.g. the tax status where you have to
| join or else).
| lithos wrote:
| It's not the union choosing to promote, it's the employer
| for IBEW.
|
| Also disallows noncompete clauses. So if your current
| employer says no, you can go to another. Which is how
| I've seen quite a few promotions. The latter of switching
| employers is far easier, since life changing benefits
| (medical/retirement) aren't tied to employers.
| (Considering SV workers get their "share" by switching
| employers every few years, that would be a nightmare
| scenario for big tech as well. Since it further reduces
| employee stickiness, if SV unions decided to offer
| benefits).
| kenhwang wrote:
| Arguably, unions are the best judge of someone's
| competency, because its supposed to be a group of peers.
| It's already how it works in tech, software engineers
| evaluate the skill of prospective software engineers, not
| management.
|
| But yes, there are gatekeeping effects, as the union is
| incentivized to prevent increases in membership or
| decrease in collective skill. It typically works out
| great for those in the union (and things like the Bar or
| Medical Association), not so great for those kept out.
| madamelic wrote:
| >Arguably, unions are the best judge of someone's
| competency, because its supposed to be a group of peers.
| It's already how it works in tech, software engineers
| evaluate the skill of prospective software engineers, not
| management.
|
| I'd much rather have 8 companies with bad interviewers
| and 2 with good interviewers than 10 companies with _the_
| union who block me because I made one of their evaluators
| personally mad at me.
|
| This just sounds like it is ripe for corruption and
| nepotism.
| grumple wrote:
| We already have corruption and nepotism, there are no
| regulations on the hiring process at all except for some
| impossible to enforce laws about protected classes.
| thu2111 wrote:
| _Companies also gain the ability to support surges /drops
| in manning requirements_
|
| They have that ability already without unions - much more
| easily because they can reduce staffing without the entire
| company falling over due to strikes.
|
| _and know workers have a minimum level of training_
|
| They have that ability already without unions.
|
| _Not every union strangles their company like automotive
| unions_
|
| By and large the only unions that remain large and powerful
| in the west are those organising government employees,
| where strangling the host is impossible because tax
| revenues mean it cannot die. In most other industries they
| did indeed strangle their host industries until they
| declined.
|
| Look at this thread. People keep talking about Hollywood as
| an example, apparently unaware of just how much business
| foreign film studios have taken from it, particularly the
| UK, due primarily to a much less aggressively unionised
| workforce.
| influx wrote:
| My experience with unions is setting up a booth for a trade
| show and being unable to plug into the outlets myself
| because I had to wait for a union electrician.
|
| Total scam.
| greggman3 wrote:
| I've had that experience. Also the experience of not
| being able to carry a monitor to by both to replace one
| the broke because "only an authorized union person can
| carry things into the convention center"
| pnw_hazor wrote:
| I my one experience, they were more than happy to let us
| breakdown the booths at the end of the show rather than
| stick around after 5pm on a Friday.
|
| But setting up or carrying things things during the day
| had to use union people.
| Cd00d wrote:
| >Total scam
|
| Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe the union electrician is there
| because once upon a time someone setting up a booth daisy
| chained a bunch of extension cords of small gauge to run
| lights and demos and started an electrical fire in a
| crowded convention hall.
| google234123 wrote:
| You are really stretching here.
| labcomputer wrote:
| > This is because those unions are serving a very different
| purpose to the stereotypical union some engineers seem to fear.
| [...]
|
| I think there's another purpose of the film industry unions
| that doesn't get mentioned much in these (tech industry)
| discussions. Specifically, that the film unions raise wages by
| limiting the number of people who enter the industry. It's
| simple supply and demand.
|
| This works via the following mechanisms:
|
| First, the film unions provide useful benefits (like
| reasonably-priced health insurance), so most professional
| actors want to be part of the union.
|
| Second, union members are prohibited from working on non-union
| productions. Additionally, most well-known actors are union
| members. This gives a strong incentive for a production to be a
| union production.
|
| Third, union productions are prohibited from hiring more than a
| token number of non-union actors (unless they pay a fine to the
| union). This gives a strong incentive for productions to only
| use union talent (which also gives actors another reason to
| want to be a union member).
|
| So far so good. But how does one join the union? That's the
| catch-22: You must work for at least _n_ days on a union
| production (n=1 for speaking roles, n=3 for extra roles) to be
| eligible to join SAG /AFTRA. But most union productions won't
| hire you unless you're a union member (see above).
|
| I don't know whether something like that would work in the
| software industry, but it seems at least _plausible_ to me that
| it could benefit everyone who is currently employed in tech (at
| the expense of future _potential_ tech employees).
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > I don't know whether something like that would work in the
| software industry, but it seems at least plausible to me that
| it could benefit everyone who is currently employed in tech
| (at the expense of future potential tech employees).
|
| I doubt it, if only because actors are hired in large part
| due to their celebrity. There are no celebrity SREs (at best
| they have some cache in the software/SRE community, but not
| in the general public).
| minimuffins wrote:
| Most people in film and TV unions aren't actors.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I was responding to a particular comment that was talking
| about the mechanics of these entertainment unions with
| respect to _actors_ specifically:
|
| > First, the film unions provide useful benefits (like
| reasonably-priced health insurance), so most professional
| actors want to be part of the union. Second, union
| members are prohibited from working on non-union
| productions. Additionally, most well-known actors are
| union members. This gives a strong incentive for a
| production to be a union production. Third, union
| productions are prohibited from hiring more than a token
| number of non-union actors (unless they pay a fine to the
| union). This gives a strong incentive for productions to
| only use union talent (which also gives actors another
| reason to want to be a union member).
|
| Note that by observing important differences between the
| film and software industries, I'm _not_ arguing that
| unions couldn 't work for the software industry. I
| suspect this is why I've been downvoted.
| labcomputer wrote:
| > I was responding to a particular comment that was
| talking about the mechanics of these entertainment unions
| with respect to actors specifically:
|
| I get your point, but I was just using SAG to give a
| concrete example. The rules are broadly similar for the
| other film industry unions as well, with similar effects
| (and other roles have "industry-famous" if not "mom and
| dad famous" talent).
|
| I suspect you'd get similar dynamics if, for example, a
| large cohort of the staff/principle engineers plus a
| bunch of senior engineers in the valley joined the SWE
| Local 16384. It's probably not necessary that your mom
| and dad have heard of them.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| The other unions are even harder to get into. At least
| occasionally a casting director will insist on a non-SAG
| actor. Many of the other unions are effectively
| impossible to get into except via their apprenticeship
| programs. Similar to the physician cartel ...
| nitrogen wrote:
| _Similar to the physician cartel ..._
|
| Indeed, sports and entertainment unions probably aren't a
| good comparison for tech. Other professions like
| accounting, medicine, law, and engineering might have
| better examples of cost/benefit, though it's hard to
| think of another professional industry with the
| ridiculous level of functional duplication (a million
| frameworks for everything) in tech.
| sitkack wrote:
| > There are no celebrity SRE
|
| Twitter is full of them.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| >> There are no celebrity SREs (at best they have some
| cache in the software/SRE community, but not in the
| general public).
|
| > Twitter is full of them.
|
| Name one.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| For some reason, the most vocal aspect of tech workers tends to
| be this libertarianish pure merit based persona that is
| insulted by any type of collective bargaining.
|
| I think that attitude rules the day because tech related
| industries are in an extended growth period, and the more
| "legacy" aspects of the industry use offshoring and guest
| workers to maintain total control. (The armies of programmers
| churning out Java at banks, etc.)
|
| While rockstar engineers exist, and everyone on the internet is
| a genius, the reality is that almost nobody has meaningful
| negotiation power over a big tech company. I've seen more than
| my share of top talent at big tech companies get dumped in
| hardship roles or be mistreated because their big boss/sponsor
| retired or moved on, and they were held hostage by vesting
| periods, etc.
|
| Growing up, I had family who were steamfitters, firemen and
| operating engineers. All of them were treated better as skilled
| labor or with clear work rules than the bullshit that I've been
| forced to deal with in my career. Not complaining -- I've lived
| a charmed work life in many ways!
| [deleted]
| rzz3 wrote:
| I personally am very happy with my job, and when I raise any
| kind of grievance it is listened to. If I were unhappy, I'd
| go to another company. So I just don't see what I'd get out
| of it personally.
| cultus wrote:
| It's neat that you are in such a position, but many aren't.
| jollofricepeas wrote:
| Great point.
|
| The funny thing about unions is that the HN community believes
| that every other organization and industry can be
| disrupted...EXCEPT unions.
|
| It's hilarious. The comments are usually all anecdotal with
| some story about an uncle or father who was "screwed over" by
| his union back in the 80s or 90s.
|
| We are capable of creating a new type of union and making
| collective bargaining better than what previous generations had
| in this current era of the greatest wealth inequality since
| Rockefeller and Carnegie.
|
| What do the tech elite and robber barons have in common?
|
| - They are all anti-union and collective bargaining.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| We might well be capable of creating a new type of union, but
| that's not what these organizers are doing. They're seeking
| to join a branch of the CWA, one of the existing union
| powerhouses.
| my_username_is_ wrote:
| Can someone explain why a small union may or may not want
| to affiliate with a larger union organization?
|
| Did Google workers have other options here?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The details of the initial organization aren't public,
| but it's likely that it went in the other direction, as
| part of the pre-existing project CODE-CWA trying to
| convince software developers to unionize with them.
| There's no reason I can see that they would have had to
| join the CWA.
|
| The advantage of affiliating with a larger organization
| is their weight becomes a part of your collective
| bargaining strength. That is, if Google does something
| the union doesn't like then the entire CWA might get mad
| at them. I don't know that there are any clear
| disadvantages from a union's perspective, which is why
| basically all organizing efforts do it.
|
| From a bird's eye perspective, the disadvantage is that
| there's no meaningful competition or innovation, because
| all new unions see themselves as part of the traditional
| union movement where solidarity is prized. If someone
| else formed a competing union with a clever new idea for
| how to organize Google workers, the CWA-backed union
| would denounce it and demand that Google refuse to talk
| to the second union.
| scarmig wrote:
| Disadvantages from a union perspective:
|
| 1) a substantial part of your dues are passed on to
| support the larger organization
|
| 2) some member services are delegated to the larger
| union, and some larger unions are better at member
| services than others
|
| 3) some larger unions spend a lot of money on political
| activism instead of member services
|
| 4) less independence of action, as larger unions might
| have different priorities than what ground level members
| want (e.g. wanting to get a contract settled instead of
| fighting for more; external organizing over internal
| organizing)
| dang wrote:
| The HN community doesn't "believe" that--people have
| different opinions on this topic, as on many others. As
| evidence you don't need to look any further than the
| massively upvoted subthread that you replied to. It's at the
| top of this page because a large slice of the community
| obviously supports this view. That many others don't agree is
| evidence that the community is divided, not that it's lined
| up against you; it's basically a variation of sample bias
| that makes things feel that way [1].
|
| Would you please review the site guidelines [2]? They include
| this: _" Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the
| community."_ One common kind of sneering is this sort of
| supercilious dismissal of everybody-else-in-the-community and
| their dumbass "hilarious" opinion--this is an internet genre
| we need to avoid in order to have real conversation. If
| you're posting here, you're as much the community as anyone
| else is.
|
| I understand what it's like to feel surrounded by enemies
| when you constantly run into comments that express something
| you strongly disagree with. But it's important to understand
| that this effect is largely a consequence of the fact that
| everyone is crammed into one big room here--there's no self-
| selecting into silos the way other sites do it (follow lists,
| subscriptions, social graphs, and so on). If you don't
| understand that, this place will feel much more fractious
| than it actually is [3], and the consequences of that are
| pretty stark: one ends up feeling surrounded by demons [4],
| and tends to retreat to things like defensive sarcasm,
| putdowns of others, etc.
|
| [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=notice%20dislike%20by:dang&
| dat...
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098
|
| [4] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=demons%20by:dang&dateRange=
| all...
| [deleted]
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| What can be done and what will be done are two entirely
| different concepts, though. What makes you confident that
| this time it will be different or that this union would be
| immune from the same issues that occur in other unions?
|
| If we've reached the point where the strongest arguments for
| unionizing is that maybe this time it will somehow be
| different than other unions, that's not encouraging.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > the strongest arguments for unionizing is that maybe this
| time it will somehow be different than other unions
|
| I think the strongest argument for unionizing is that we
| _know_ that this time is different from other times -
| wealth inequality is staggeringly high.
| dleslie wrote:
| And so why would tech workers, who presently are
| generally in the upper decile of compensation, want to
| join an organization that may seek to diminish income
| disparity?
|
| Seems like a leopards ate my face moment.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Because income disparity has larger effects that will in
| the long-term screw over tech workers as they have the
| rest of society. In the Bay Area alone, income disparity
| coupled with housing shortage has contributed to mass
| homelessness; cue highly-paid tech workers Tweeting about
| having to step over human waste on the way to work. On a
| national and indeed international level, income disparity
| leads to political upheaval as populist movements capture
| discontent from slipping standards of living in
| diminishing middle classes.
| kortilla wrote:
| Mass homelessness isn't related to income inequality.
| That's entirely caused by a failed local government that
| will not permit housing fast enough to deal with the
| demand.
|
| Zuckerberg making $80 billion instead of $1 billion has
| literally no impact on the homeless in the bay. He only
| buys one or two houses at most. If the Facebook employees
| made even more money, that would only exacerbate the
| housing crisis because they could bid prices much higher
| (thousands of Facebook employees vs 1 Zuck).
| dleslie wrote:
| A more effective change for the Bay Area would be for
| tech workers to leave, not unionize. The issues spring
| from the market pressure that the hoards of highly-
| compensated tech workers place on the community.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Given that there seems to be an exodus in motion, even as
| unionization efforts begin, it would seem like this is an
| industry that can walk and chew bubblegum at the same
| time.
| dleslie wrote:
| I suppose the union could aid the exodus by lobbying
| against any new positions opening in the bay area, and
| lobbying for existing positions to be relocated. I'm not
| sure how popular that would be with wealthy tech union
| members who like living in the bay area, though.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| One thing that's been brought up in the past is that
| prior to this pandemic-driven WFH present (and probably
| is still true) is that secondary and satellite offices
| tend to not have limited openings or paths towards
| advancement. While a union might not be the best tool for
| the job, that seems like the sort of thing that organized
| employee opinion can try to influence. Maybe a lot of
| workers want to live and work in Austin, and management
| needs to invest more in the satellite office there, allow
| more career development opportunities, etc. This industry
| often seems to led by hidebound opinions that the rank-
| and-file often disagrees with. Fixation on Bay Area HQs,
| along with rejection of WFH and obsession with open
| offices, are examples of such policies which are
| seemingly only changed by something drastic as the threat
| of unionization- or more realistically- a worldwide
| pandemic.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I was pretty darn clear in saying wealth inequality, not
| income inequality. Also, inter-industry disparity doesn't
| matter in this case: your argument would apply equally to
| NFL players who are unionized, but it doesn't matter that
| their compensation is high relative to the average
| American, what matters is getting a higher share of the
| profit from management/owners in a highly profitable
| industry.
|
| Similarly in tech, unions can be a way of gaining greater
| profit sharing for the high-skilled workers necessary for
| the business to function. Where tech workers lie in
| income percentile is irrelevant and distracting to this
| question.
| dleslie wrote:
| Income and wealth are not disjoint concepts. Income
| begets wealth, and wealth begets income.
|
| From a societal standpoint, it doesn't particularly aid
| widespread inequality if a small number of tech workers
| receive a bump in income; the union may cause the
| situation to worsen, as the union has an incentive to
| keep the supply of employees restricted in order to
| maximize their compensation. The unionized employees
| would be protected from public competition.
|
| Having pro-sports players in a union hasn't exactly
| improved widespread inequality.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Not disjoint, but _different_ especially when over half
| of all money in the US is acquired via inheritance rather
| than earned income during one 's lifetime [0].
|
| Moreover, much wealth (especially at the top) is held in
| equities, often that aren't sold before being passed on
| to inheritance. That means:
|
| a. that this wealth isn't counted as income
|
| b. that decreases in equity prices due to unionization
| (and corresponding decreased expected returns to
| owners/shareholders) will burden the non-working rich
| disproportionately.
|
| Sure, it won't solve wealth inequality - but where there
| is a zero-sum tradeoff, that tradeoff will mostly be from
| rich tech owners + management to affluent tech workers,
| not from the rest of society to the tech workers.
|
| [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-
| policy/2019/02/06/people-l...
| svieira wrote:
| Precisely - I'm not anti-union, but I've seen the worst of
| unions (where they become boss #2 instead of being the
| collective voice of the worker). Anyone planning on
| starting a union should look at cases where unions _failed_
| and avoid creating a union structure that resembles the
| failures.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I like this framing. This sounds a lot like how
| entrepreneurs should also look at failed companies rather
| than only successes.
|
| One thing that every disliked union seems to have is the
| goal of permanence for the union itself. Maybe instead of
| having elected or long-term leaders in a permanent union,
| some should try a sortition process in a conference-like
| structure that reconvenes when enough employees vote to
| convene, then disbands until called upon again.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > _We are capable of creating a new type of union..._
|
| Can you give examples of such new types of unions that have
| been established the last 1-2 decades, and how they differ
| from the "legacy" versions?
| ivvve wrote:
| IWGB and UVW (International Workers of Great Britain and
| United Voices of the World) are examples in the UK. IWGB in
| particular has done great work representing some of the
| most precarious workers in the gig economy, a risk that
| bigger unions cannot or will not take. Partly this is due
| to the UK unions playing it safe with direct action such as
| strikes, since labour laws in the UK were made rather
| stringent since Thatcher and the NUM had it out in the 80s.
|
| This is a great article about them. Maybe paywalled, sorry!
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/576c68ea-3784-11ea-a6d3-9a26f8c3
| c...
|
| If you Google "IWGB deliveroo" or "UVW St. Marys" you will
| find interesting case studies where each have represented
| delivery riders and nurses and won concessions where a
| bigger union wouldn't have bothered cos of the risk
| involved. Echoing the comment a few levels up, this can
| definitely be seen as a "disruption" of what a union is or
| is expected to do.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| > What do the tech elite and robber barons have in common?
|
| I heard Hitler liked dogs, so if you like dogs you're
| obviously anti-Semitic.
|
| EDIT: The point of this was to show how absurd adjunct
| comparisons like this are.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _the HN community believes that every other organization
| and industry can be disrupted...EXCEPT unions._
|
| The thing about this is, when other organizations and
| industry are "disrupted", according to the usual west-coast
| definition of "disrupt" this typically means exploiting a
| market to the benefit of shareholders by eroding labor
| standards. What does one erode while disrupting a union, when
| those same standards are that org's goal?
|
| The only thing I can think of that the modern form of
| "disruption" would do to unions is to allow them to "screw
| over" their members more efficiently.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Sounds good. Tech unions can exploit a market to the
| benefit of shareholders by eroding labor standards.
|
| - The market is labor
|
| - The shareholders are the union members
|
| - The labor standards are the current status quo, which
| made Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe owners and managers
| believe this (https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidere
| d/2015/01/16/37...) was acceptable until the government
| forced their hand on it. "Erosion," here, would be a
| disruption that makes the status quo worse for company
| owners... Makes that kind of one-sided back-room dealing no
| longer safe for the companies that engage in it, since they
| no longer fear merely government intervention, but their
| own employees banding together to say "Knock it off."
| subsubzero wrote:
| > When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot
| of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what
| unions are for and who they serve
|
| Agree, things that a union can address:
|
| - Pay transparency, Have detailed info about pay bands, and
| ensure some new hire from a hot company doing the same job as
| you is not making 2-3x your salary.
|
| - Broken promotion process, at my company promotion is
| completely broken with really talented engineers leaving all
| the time as they are not getting promoted(alot of politics at
| play etc), a union can ensure promotions are granted in an even
| process.
|
| - Age discrimination, This one will affect everyone as we all
| will get older. Alot of companies abuse this one under the
| guise of "culture fit". A union will ensure that talented older
| engineers are not discriminated against either while working
| and being fired for being too old or at the interview process
| under culture fit nonsense.
|
| - Interviews, I think most people can agree that tech
| interviews are pretty broken. They are designed to be extremely
| hard to encourage people to stay in their position and it
| usually takes months of practice to be able to pass one. Unions
| could fix this broken process.
|
| - Working with bad actors, When google started work on a secret
| search engine with the chinese govt. googlers were outraged, a
| union could ensure its members do not work in any way with a
| govt that does not support common human rights.
| delaynomore wrote:
| I worked in a unionized IT shop for 6 years (now in SV) and
| here's my take:
|
| Pay transparency: union mandated pay band helps - no 2x/3x
| pay for the same position that's for sure. Though I do think
| this problem could be solved without a union. It's really
| about opening up compensation information.
|
| Broken promotion process/age discrimination/interviews:
|
| First of all, broken processes are not going to get better
| with a union. They will still be broken, just in different
| ways.
|
| Union favors/protects seniority therefore the promotion
| process will still push out high performing employees because
| they need to "wait for their turn". In fact the running joke
| we had about promotion was that you could only get promoted
| if someone: 1. Dies 2. Retires 3. Quits
|
| Age discrimination happens less than in SV tech companies but
| not by design. In general the workforce in a union shop is
| older but you also have a lot of low performing lifers
| counting their days to retirement. On the other hand,
| interview is far less rigorous since the key factor is
| "likability" (aka culture fit). Many interviews took place
| just to satisfy a policy when a pre-determined candidate was
| already chosen.
|
| Will I ever work for a unionized IT shop again? Not a chance.
| subsubzero wrote:
| Thanks for this interesting bit of info. To be fair I think
| none of these issues has to have a union to solve it, its
| just the majority of tech companies are really not fixing
| these major issues and most likely will never fix them.
|
| > but you also have a lot of low performing lifers counting
| their days to retirement
|
| I see this as a huge issue with unions. But I feel you have
| the same folks in large tech companies, they fall into a
| large team, the company is profitable so its not looking
| for layoffs, the person/s fall under the radar and they
| contribute as little as possible.
| Shish2k wrote:
| > Unions could fix [tech interviews]
|
| Is the problem really "we know how to fix tech interviews,
| but the upper management don't like it"?
|
| Going by HN discussion I thought that the problem was "There
| are tens of totally different interview methods, everybody
| thinks one method is obviously the best and all the others
| suck, but nobody can agree on which one method that is", and
| I'm not sure how a union would fix that :P
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _...ensure some new hire from a hot company doing the
| same job as you is not making 2-3x your salary_ "
|
| Given the number of young people in software and entering
| software, seniority based pay and losing the ability to job
| hop for increased salary is pretty much the last thing on
| earth they would want. It would also kill the company's
| ability to hire top talent by being able to offer more money.
| yibg wrote:
| I object to unions because of past experiences in and
| interacting with unions. For me the 2 major problems with
| unions are:
|
| 1) there is an us vs them mentality. You are in or you are out.
| If you are out, it's harder to get in. This also leads to dead
| weight staying around and people doing the bare minimum. This
| might be good for those already in the union, but terrible for
| anyone not.
|
| 2) a lot of politics / corruption / nepotism. Hired are made
| based on relationships, promotions are either tenure based or
| based on relationships.
|
| Not saying these things don't happen at non unions places, but
| from what I've seen they happen a lot more at unions. Some
| times the stereotypes are based in reality.
| conanbatt wrote:
| Just look at the unions california has and see how well the
| work. Teachers, Bart and Police.
|
| Great examples of the success of unionization?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's also funny because blue collar work is / can be
| ridiculously well-paid, in part thanks to the union's efforts.
| damagednoob wrote:
| That's what happens when you control supply. Your politics
| determines whether it's to maintain standards or the wages of
| its members.
| jswizzy wrote:
| you don't control the supply though. Google will just
| offshore these jobs to India.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Unions control supply. It takes over 10 years to get into
| the longshoremans union, but once you do, you'll make
| $220k a year. It's because the union puts most of the
| work on the people trying to get into the union earning
| $14/hr so they can pay huge sums to the unionized worker.
| It's a cartel, like OPEC.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| All the "ridiculously well paid" unionized blue collar
| workers I know are the people who work a ton of hours of
| overtime in an environment where their seniority permits them
| to get first dibs.
|
| They are outnumbers ~2:1 by the blue collar workers I know
| who make that kind of money by working for themselves or by
| making themselves so indispensable to some employer that the
| employer pays them well above market to retain their
| experience in a non-union environment (e.g. the maintenance
| guy at a factory who's been there forever and a half and
| knows exactly why everything is the way it is, this maps
| pretty well to a lot of the highly paid "architect" positions
| that a lot of tech BigCos have).
|
| I'm not sure how these situations map to a salaried
| workplace.
|
| Yes I know this is just an anecdote.
| mattzito wrote:
| I'm as pro-union as they come, but let's not pretend that the
| film and theater unions are an unalloyed good. It's true that
| the top is not limited for people who make millions of dollars,
| but the bottom is fairly restrictive, and that has a negative
| impact on many many actors/performers. For example, once you
| are an Actors Equity member, you can not do non-Equity work,
| except with special exemptions. You are also required to join
| equity once you do a certain number of Equity weeks - this
| means that I know people who luck into one Equity show early in
| their career, have to join Equity, and then are locked out of
| swaths of theatrical work because they're Equity. At the same
| time, though, they don't have enough of a resume to keep
| getting Equity work. SAG and AFTRA have similar policies.
|
| I agree they've done a good job at curbing abuses, and again,
| I'm pro-union overall, but the film/tv/theater unions
| definitely force some tough decisions for the lower end of the
| worker spectrum
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| > I've had people tell me that they don't support unions in
| tech because they'll be "paid less", or less competent
| engineers will be promoted faster.
|
| I am such a person. For most workers, you're right that a union
| will probably increase wages. But for me, it will do the
| opposite. In most jobs I have worked, I ended up paid
| significantly more than counterparts in the same job. I usually
| was better at my job and put in more hours, so this was
| warranted. And for promotions, I don't see how this is wrong:
| most every union of which I'm aware ends using seniority as a
| factor in promotions, which I generally resent.
|
| I never liked the mandatory nature of unions, either. If
| they're that good for workers, quit trying to force the whole
| company to join. I also hate the idea of being forced to
| strike.
|
| As far as my interests are concerned, a union would end up
| taking money and promotions from me and giving it to others.
| So, I will always vote against them. If one shows up at my
| workplace, I will probably move because someone else offers
| better terms of employment.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > put in more hours
|
| I'm skeptical of unionization in tech, but the one thing I
| can imagine unions would fix is the constant unpaid overtime
| that's associate with tech jobs. In a union situation, you'd
| be paid more if you were working more hours period, rather
| than hoping somebody would notice and give you a pay raise at
| some indeterminate time in the future.
| Sodman wrote:
| It's not a huge stretch to imagine the following scenario
| play out though:
|
| 1. Tech workers unionize, negotiate with employer that any
| work > 40 hours / week get paid overtime.
|
| 2. The company now has two choices: A) Pay their employees
| more than their competitors for the same work. Or B) Don't
| authorize any overtime.
|
| 3. In scenario A, they're either running at (much) higher
| cost than their competitors, and thus a disadvantage. In
| Scenario B, they're either slower to ship products, or
| there's a bunch of "off the books" work done by engineers
| trying to ship things anyways (which is basically the
| status quo today, except now it would cost you 1% of your
| salary).
|
| I could see the first scenario potentially attracting
| better talent for the significantly higher pay in the short
| term. But it's also a perverse incentive structure where if
| my 8 hours of work suddenly takes 9 hours, I get paid more,
| so why would I finish it early? Oh and because I'm in a
| union, it's now much harder to get rid of me, even if I'm
| half-assing it.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Maybe B) will lead to fewer poorly-run projects that lead
| to unnecessary overtime.
| Sodman wrote:
| B) is basically what we have already. Contractually only
| required to work 40 hour weeks, no [official] pressure
| from management to work more, but anyone who does will
| most likely have higher output / receive better
| performance bonuses and recognition, etc.
|
| The only thing a union brings to the table in this
| situation is now I'm either explicitly forbidden from
| working more on a project even if I want to, or I have to
| hide what I'm doing and go all cloak-and-dagger about it,
| probably breaking some kind of labor laws in the process.
| All for 1% of my salary. Doesn't seem like a good trade
| for me?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It seems like in the scenario B) has the added teeth of
| deterring leadership from forcing unpaid overtime, as
| some management do, though it is possible even with the
| union-enacted mandate they will still try to sneak it in,
| as you suggested.
|
| > I'm either explicitly forbidden from working more on a
| project even if I want to
|
| This sort of nitpicking is always cited as a reason for
| why unions are bad but would a union really get up in
| your case over something like that? And furthermore,
| would a tech union birthed natively in this industry,
| created and populated by tech workers who have also
| worked spent evenings or weekends voluntarily to work on
| projects they themselves were passionate enough to
| finish, really penalize its all members for doing the
| same? Wouldn't they, you know, have an insider's insight
| of the needs and interests of working in tech?
|
| I think not. The idea is to guard against when management
| oversteps its boundaries, not to police other workers.
| And if the union inevitably does fall short and do the
| latter, then by being part of a union, you would have the
| power to make changes within it.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Why is it harder to fire people that don't meet
| performance standards of they're in a union? Which union
| members are striking to support poorly performing
| colleagues aren't union members and bosses aligned here -
| in general people don't want to carry their colleagues
| (if they're performing badly because they're
| lazy/incapable)?
| bumby wrote:
| One unfortunate consequence in A is that it may cause the
| unscrupulous to delay work in order to work overtime at a
| higher rate. This was sometimes an issue with (non-
| software) maintenance
| astura wrote:
| Salaried employees usually get paid straight time for
| overtime rather than time and a half. (That's my personal
| experience - I've always been paid straight time for
| overtime) That at least takes away one incentive to delay
| work to work overtime - you still get paid more, but you
| don't increase your hourly rate.
| bumby wrote:
| Your comment had me looking up the professional exemption
| and you are right, I think most CS job would fall under
| exempted employees.
|
| I've worked both, the one job I had that gave employee
| pay was the result of litigation that happened prior to
| my arrival. It was pretty awesome though to get 3x pay on
| holidays, 2x overtime, and an additional 10% working off-
| shifts.
| bumby wrote:
| To be fair, there are other avenues to fix this. I came
| into a job that just settled a lawsuit over this for the
| very small number on non-union workers it applied to. From
| then on, that small group received increased overtime pay
| despite being non-union
| yrimaxi wrote:
| I think we can just end the whole thread with this comment
| (the parent's). It's perfect.
|
| To summarize: unions might in general be good or bad, but any
| talk of tech unions on HN will be controversial because of
| how massively--and this cannot be overstated--, stupendously
| better the average HN reader is compared to the average tech
| worker. Thread over.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > None of these unions are limiting the work their members are
| carrying out.
|
| I don't believe that this is a truthful statement. Does Global
| Rule One in the SAG not limit the work that members can carry
| out? If they union doesn't want you to work on a production
| then you are not allowed to work on that production.
| rafram wrote:
| No, you're completely misunderstanding the rule. Because the
| film industry works on a freelance basis, the union only has
| bargaining power if it doesn't exist alongside a non-
| unionized body of workers who are willing to work for
| cheaper. By requiring that union members only work unionized
| jobs, they ensure that no non-union production can ever
| benefit from _any_ non-union labor. This pushes productions
| to negotiate terms with the union in order to get talent, and
| that in turn helps union members get jobs.
|
| It's not about whether the union likes you or thinks you
| deserve to work. It's about whether the production is willing
| to play by union rules.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I don't get it - isn't 'requiring that union members only
| work unionized jobs' an example of 'limiting the work their
| members are carrying out'?
|
| If you're a member of the union, you can't work on
| productions without certain agreements, yes? Your ability
| to work on productions you want to work on is... limited...
| isn't it?
| lr4444lr wrote:
| There is plenty of evidence that I've seen firsthand in
| municipal government of unions protecting and promoting
| incompetent IT talent. It doesn't all fall to @#$& solely
| because government tech is often very slow to change, so
| mediocre workers can train on very specific applications and
| not need much continuing ed. I scarcely ever met one that would
| get hired at either a FAANG or a tech startup. I will qualify
| this by saying it's U.S. only. Maybe other countries handle
| this all much better, but we're dealing with Google U.S. in
| this story.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I agree that government tech is usually pretty not great, but
| I am not sure if that has to do with unions per se or perhaps
| the government's antiquated pay scales/lack of civil service
| exam.
| pydry wrote:
| Given the amount of incompetent talent I've seen promoted
| _without_ a union because they cozy up to management I have a
| really hard time believing the picture would be any worse
| with them.
|
| Meritocracy is orthogonal to unionization, I think, though I
| doubt there's an employer in the world that doesn't believe
| that their decisions are entirely meritocratic.
|
| The argument "[institution]* tends to towards corruption
| therefore we shouldn't have [institution]" is a logical
| fallacy in all cases, since _all_ human institutions tend
| towards corruption but we still _need_ them.
|
| * replace [institution] with government, government
| department, police, corporations, unions, etc. and the
| fallacy remains the same.
| tempuser189 wrote:
| Oh trust me, it gets much much worse after unionization,
| since businesses have little ability to let go of
| unproductive workers.
| pydry wrote:
| Well, sure. Nothing says trustworthy like a brand new
| anonymous user saying "trust me".
| [deleted]
| flr03 wrote:
| Where is the evidence?
| antisoeu wrote:
| Here in Germany unions (in tech) will for example make sure
| that older employees can't be fired, so the younger employees
| will be fired instead. So I don't think you can simply claim
| they are beneficial for everybody.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This is the detail that most people miss:
|
| Unions don't protect the general public against a company.
| They protect the ranking members of a company.
|
| That means the union also protects members of the company
| from the general public who might be looking to take their
| job by offering to work harder or better or cheaper.
|
| If you're a young person getting started in this industry it
| might be fun to imagine working in a unionized environment,
| but remember that the union would be working to protect its
| members from you breaking into the company and entering the
| senior ranks.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Is that why in Ford's recent deal struck with UAW, one of
| the sticking points for UAW was that there be a "Guaranteed
| path to permanent full-time employment for temporary
| employees"?
|
| That would seem to be entirely contrary to the idea that
| union's goal is to make it harder for people to join these
| companies.
| kanbara wrote:
| Um... in germany works councils don't get rid of young
| people because they want to protect their senior ranks.
|
| First: it's really hard to get fired in germany, almost
| impossible.
|
| Second: they help formulate who gets laid off when, when
| there are layoffs, and prioritise people who can and will
| find a job more easily. So young people and people without
| families. This is because older people are more vulnerable
| to discrimination.
|
| This is what a society does to protect each other and to
| use power against a company because the employer-employee
| relationship is adversarial. Unions don't exist to protect
| the brass, i don't even know what you're on about
| tempuser189 wrote:
| First: that's awful because it means business don't have
| any flexibility to change. you're forced to work with
| people who don't work, because they can't get fired. The
| lower productivity of those workers becomes a drag on
| everyone else.
|
| Second: this is the worst. Instead of shedding the dead
| weight it insists on protecting the people who've been
| paying dues the longest, at the expense of young people.
|
| No this is not what I call a just society.
|
| A just society is one where people doing more work get
| more pay. This exists fine right now. Workers have tons
| of companies to choose from. Companies have lots of
| workers to choose from. There's a vibrant market and most
| people end up getting paid what they're worth.
| antisoeu wrote:
| Don't you notice that you contradict yourself? You claim
| they don't decide who gets fired, and in the next
| paragraph you explain that they will get younger people
| fired, because they are presumed to have an easier time
| finding new jobs.
|
| "They" help formulate - I don't think the young people
| who get fired belong to the "they" very much. Otherwise,
| again, there would be no need for unions. The young
| people would just volunteer to quit for the sake of the
| old people.
| amaccuish wrote:
| And yet you've just generalised without looking deeper.
| "They fire all the young people" is a hot take, until you
| realise that young people will far more easily find a new
| job.
| antisoeu wrote:
| You inserted the "all", I did not write "they fire all
| the young people". It's also just an example.
|
| It is also not a given that young people will have it
| easier to find a new job. Youth unemployment is at
| staggering heights in many countries.
|
| And by your logic, there still is no incentive for young
| people to support the unions. They could just give up
| their jobs voluntarily, if they are so convinced that it
| is the right thing to do.
| pydry wrote:
| Divide and conquer - pitting one group against another - is a
| pretty standard union busting tactic.
|
| Since unionization is essentially a fight for power with
| management and fights are, well, confrontational, its kind of
| a given that there will be casualties and fallout.
|
| Whether that's worse than yielding all collective power to
| management depends on many variables, including how
| confrontational and revenge oriented management tends to be.
| 8note wrote:
| Do younger employees pay less in Union dues as a result?
| anoncake wrote:
| > Here in Germany unions (in tech) will for example make sure
| that older employees can't be fired, so the younger employees
| will be fired instead.
|
| That's the law actually, IIRC. It also protects people with
| children.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| Boomers often have a major advantage in democratised
| situations, simply because there are _more of them_.
|
| As such, it's still in your own interest to join a union and
| be represented. And, with Boomers retiring, this power
| imbalance in unions can be lessened or reversed.
| missedthecue wrote:
| There are not more boomers than other demographics. Why
| would you say this?
| thatfunkymunki wrote:
| There are more boomers in power than other demographics
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| Why do you think they are called "boomers"? There was a
| population boom.
| missedthecue wrote:
| That's great, but the millennial generation had more
| births, and given all the deaths that the boomer gen has
| had since 1946, millennials are a much larger block at
| this point.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| In tech, there are more people with degrees than old
| people. It's basic math of an expanding industry.
|
| It's definitely not the case that there are more "boomer"
| software engineers than younger engineers. One look at
| charts of CS degrees issued by year will clearly show why.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| unintended consequences
|
| 1. Fat cats. What are the due fees? %1 now?, later then? %5 of
| gross annually? 200 people * 300k year * %5 of salary = 3
| million. They will use this on fancy dinners with Google execs?
| Or spend it in "wrongful terminations" law suites with google
| for years? What happens when 50x more join.
|
| 2. Who runs it? Will it be a 10 year long president? What is
| her union salary? A non-google person? Will it be full time? A
| slack group? They dish out favors to win elections?
|
| 3. Who gets into the union? Base is on the newest woke culture?
| Base it on need? Salary? Scan their social media? Popularity
| contests? Seems like a great way to start discrimination.
|
| 4. Will being in this union freak out future employers? If your
| union spends most of it's time suing - will they want you
| around? EG. I don't see Tesla wanting a high ranking union
| person from google.
|
| 5. My wife worked at a union. Unions tend to not fire - so (non
| blue collar) you end up with hundreds of drained, demotivated,
| incompetent - due payers. This is the direction people at
| google want to go? Who will actually do the work? Non-union
| Sub-contractors?
|
| 6. Will they become political? Will you have to join this
| political party? What if you disagree on a few things? You
| still pay dues right - to the Fat Cat?
|
| 7. Will they corner off work? EG. You can't be a designer level
| III without being in the union.
|
| One thing that wont happen: better working conditions.
| 8note wrote:
| 8. Will the union be providing housing?
| ransom1538 wrote:
| 9. Can you start a union against the union? Or are you no
| longer allowed in that parent union? Does the union have
| anti-sub unions clauses?
| pnw_hazor wrote:
| When I did employee-side employment discrimination law, the
| stories from the union employees who worked at a giant US
| airplane manufacture were the saddest. Often with local union
| leadership being involved in the discrimination.
|
| Eventually I learned to pass on cases that involved unionized
| employees because having a union involved made it much more
| difficult to prosecute cases.
| minimuffins wrote:
| These are all real problems, especially in a lot of today's
| older unions that have been completely hollowed out and have
| become a kind of do-nothing "labor aristocracy."
|
| They don't function as democratic institutions serving
| laborers' interests anymore, only their own narrow, elite,
| institutional needs--often institutional self-preservation at
| the expense of their members' interests. They're decrepit,
| corrupt dinosaurs, just like the Right says. But they got
| that way by losing the fight in the 20th century. Now they're
| kind of useless vestiges just waiting around to slough off
| eventually.
|
| So the old unions are no model to emulate here. But just
| noting that and giving up of course leaves the problem of my
| lack of power in the workplace completely unsolved.
|
| > One thing that wont happen: better working conditions.
|
| I still want better working conditions though, for me and for
| everybody. What do you suggest?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| 1. They'll probably spend it on lawyers & negotiation teams.
|
| 2. How are those consequences?
|
| 3.
|
| > Base is on the newest woke culture? ... Scan their social
| media?
|
| What? If they are voted in, Google will be required to
| provide the employee manifest.
|
| 5. First, there are unions in numerous industries with lots
| of firings/seasonal firings. Second, firing is also not as
| common in big tech anyways.
|
| 6. You have a vote? On what to negotiate on?
| rafram wrote:
| 1. Members have agreed to contribute 1%, as stated in the
| article that you may not have read.
|
| 2. Elections
|
| 3. The article also answers this question. It's open to
| anyone working for Alphabet (besides, if it works like a
| typical union, management).
|
| 4. Not hiring you for your union affiliation would be highly
| illegal.
|
| 5. She worked AT a union? Unions don't fire people? I have no
| idea what you're talking about. Do you mean she was a member,
| and that unions prevent companies from firing their members?
| Even that's largely not true.
|
| 6. Yes, you'll have to join the Communist Party of America
| and pledge allegiance to AOC in order to even join the zoom
| call, of course. Because that's how unions work
|
| 7. No, because it's voluntary, as you could've read in the
| article that you didn't read.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| > It's open to anyone working for Alphabet (besides, if it
| works like a typical union, management).
|
| This to me kind of highlights the disconnect of unions in
| software engineering. In many companies including Google,
| there are parallel IC and management tracks. There are ICs
| in leadership positions but just without any reports. Does
| that mean, e.g. an L7 staff engineer can unionize but not
| an L5 manager?
|
| And then it leads to me wonder, why can't managers unionize
| in a typical union? Even at a big old-fashioned
| manufacturing company with a union, the managers are still
| individual people who are separate from the company itself.
| Presumably the reason is that they already have better
| conditions, they're highly paid, maybe they're already
| aligned with company itself because they have an ownership
| stake or some incentive bonus structure. All of those
| arguments apply to software engineers as well.
|
| This may be a cheesy analogy, but in some ways all software
| engineers in tech are already effectively the middle
| managers. They oversee the "assembly line" that generates
| the revenue for the business, which just happens to be
| software rather than people.
| lokar wrote:
| From my read of the situation (based on past union
| experience), this is not a normal union. They do not seek
| exclusive bargaining power for a contract.
|
| It seems more like an association of employees who seek
| to influence leadership on specific topics. There
| influence comes not from the threat of a strike, but
| rather just numbers (eg we have X% of workers, all
| willing to put up 1% of pay, you should really listen to
| us).
| cactus2093 wrote:
| In that case, for an average employee making $100k-$200k
| a year in base salary at Google, I can't imagine paying
| $1-2k a year for the privilege of raising concerns
| without any real teeth. They can already do this anyway
| in retros or all-hands meetings, signing on to open
| letters to the executive team, etc.
|
| Not saying that the organizers here have malicious
| intentions, but if you did have malicious intentions then
| something like this could actually be a pretty good
| scam... Re-purposing the word "union" for something that
| is not really serving that role, and collecting money
| from people who will ideologically sign onto it without
| thinking because they automatically think "unions ==
| good". Basically making money off of the current shift to
| the left in US politics.
| stevegalla wrote:
| At least in Canada I've seen two different unions at the
| same place. One Union for managers and one union for the
| other non-manager employees. I don't think there is
| anything stopping managers from forming their own
| different union.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > 6. Yes, you'll have to join the Communist Party of
| America and pledge allegiance to AOC in order to even join
| the zoom call, of course. Because that's how unions work
|
| You might say that as a joke but Unions have a long history
| of heavily pressuring or forcing members to vote one way
| and in turn using these "guaranteed" votes to extract
| "favors" from politicians.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I mean, so do corporations in this country.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/id/49421240
| subaquamille wrote:
| > forcing members to vote on way
|
| Aren't votes anonymous in US ? Or perhaps you meant
| "inciting members to vote one way" ?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| greggman3 wrote:
| Here's a movie about some of the issues with Hollywood unions
|
| https://youtu.be/j5a_00YVVkQ?t=1018
|
| https://youtu.be/j5a_00YVVkQ?t=935
| finnthehuman wrote:
| >When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of
| misconceptions
|
| Because everyone talking about unionization refuses to get into
| the nitty gritty of what I might gain, what I might lose, and
| the structural changes to the workplaces that are inherent with
| unionization.
|
| And if/when I/others start spitballing about what those might
| be we're treated like dolts uneducated on organized labor, and
| should just shut my mouth and get on board.
|
| >they don't always get it right
|
| This is the closest anyone every gets to saying something, but
| it doesn't mean anything. Where the fuck is the actual case
| study about the structure of the system, constraints,
| influences, incentives? How does it evolve and how does the
| contract change and evolve that system?
|
| >I don't pretend that Hollywood is a perfect utopia of worker
| relations, but I think it's pretty undeniable that the industry
| is a much better place with the unions around.
|
| SHOW don't TELL.
|
| tl;dr: Don't tell me I want a union contract, tell me what the
| terms of the contract will be and I'll decide for myself. I'm
| probably on board, but every time someone glosses over the
| details you push me further and further away.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| >tell me what the terms of the contract will be and I'll
| decide for myself.
|
| Nobody can tell you what the contract will be because the
| contract won't be drawn up until the union exists and has
| enough members to bargain.
|
| What you DO know is the current contract you have. You DO
| know that you have virtually no say in what is in that
| contract, "accept it or leave," is not having a say in that
| contract. You DO know that as a member of the union, you will
| have a vote in what employment contracts look like. You DO
| know that if you have an issue, you have someone outside the
| company that you can talk to about it--that is, you wont' get
| fired for bringing it up.
| lliamander wrote:
| At least an idea of what they are trying to bargain for
| would be nice.
| azernik wrote:
| They have a website with a platform and priorities at
| https://alphabetworkersunion.org/power/why/
|
| "We want to wield our power to ensure:
|
| * Our working conditions are inclusive and fair,
|
| * Perpetrators of harassment, abuse, discrimination, and
| retaliation are held accountable,
|
| * We have the freedom to decline to work on projects that
| don't align with our values,
|
| * All workers, regardless of employment status, can enjoy
| the same benefits."
| gedy wrote:
| While not totally unreasonable, this does sound more
| politically motivated than many traditional unions.
| salmon30salmon wrote:
| _Our working conditions are inclusive and fair_
|
| How does one define "inclusive and fair". Who decides
| what is inclusive? The Union? I don't want to apply the
| fallacy of inclusion, but if someone wears a crucifix and
| that makes an atheist feel excluded, who is right? I know
| "the Union will decide" but tyranny of the majority is a
| real thing. See the ban on burkas/hijabs in many
| "inclusive" countries.
|
| Also, if you are appealing to the public, saying that the
| working conditions at Google, where you are paid near the
| top 1% of the all workers and have free food etc,
| "working conditions" might not be the right term.
|
| _We have the freedom to decline to work on projects that
| don't align with our values_
|
| When do you declare your values? Is it always a moving
| target? To be a conscientious objector in the United
| States, there needs to be a demonstrable history of your
| objection. You can't get drafted and then suddenly find
| religion. How do you stop the inevitable abuse of this
| exclusion?
| ahepp wrote:
| >When do you declare your values? Is it always a moving
| target? To be a conscientious objector in the United
| States, there needs to be a demonstrable history of your
| objection. You can't get drafted and then suddenly find
| religion. How do you stop the inevitable abuse of this
| exclusion?
|
| Well, we're talking about working on software projects
| here. I work in defense and would have no qualms about
| the whole Project Maven thing. But if all they want is
| the freedom to decline to work on it, that seems pretty
| reasonable to me. They didn't sign up for that stuff, and
| Google isn't primarily a defense company.
|
| The draft is (in theory) an emergency measure for the
| good of the nation. Just like the government can force
| you to pay taxes, they can force you to fight in the
| military. That's certainly not a power a private
| corporation should have.
| ergocoder wrote:
| Thank you for, at least, hypothesizing the benefits, so
| we can have a proper discussion.
|
| The top two seem fine, but Google is one of the best
| places to work at on the planet. But I don't mind it
| being improved.
|
| The fourth one is really just a compensation package. I
| don't agree that every job should have the same
| compensation/benefits.
|
| The third one is what I oppose. If you don't want to work
| on a project, then don't. I don't want to work in a trash
| dump (oh the pay is great too), so I don't.
|
| I'm also certain that the fourth one will be weaponized
| and use for deplatforming people.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Their union seems to be more social justice focused than
| I'd be interested in joining, e.g. "achieve just
| outcomes, social and economic justice are paramount".
|
| I'd be much more interested in tackling things like non-
| competes, employee ownership of side projects, better
| vesting schedules, better direction for the company,
| salaries, revisiting how many H1B visas there are, etc.
| bennysonething wrote:
| Sounds political, which is the problem with unions. If I
| want to work I have to pay dues to a political
| organisation. Also, why should a company pay you when you
| refuse to work on a project?
| pwned1 wrote:
| Sounds like the cart before the horse. Tell me I'm signing
| up for something that I have no idea how it will turn out,
| and then present me with a take it or leave it contract
| months later. And I'm stuck.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| You would have a part in shaping the contract, though.
| And if you don't like it, yeah, leave the union, you're
| no worse off than you were before.
| rlewkov wrote:
| You may or may not be better off. How will people that
| are/aren't part of a union be treated if some people are
| members? If majority is union and you are not, will you
| be shunned, denied same opportunities for promotion, etc?
| We can only guess.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| The management have to find out you're in a union first,
| then ... why do they shun you, what's the play you're
| imagining here?
|
| Don't you have employment contracts? People will, at
| least under rule of law, be treated according to their
| contracts and your country's employment law??
|
| Does your company currently investigate who you've spoken
| to about your job and seek to punish you for representing
| your better interests?
| RHSeeger wrote:
| I believe the person you're replying to was talking about
| how non-union members would be treated by union members.
| And, at least in the US, the answer is "horrible". The
| people in the unions are widely known for coming out hard
| and strong, with considerable bile, against anyone that
| so much as expresses the opinion that the union might not
| be the right choice for them. Rats, scabs, etc; pick your
| insulting name, they're called it.
| tengbretson wrote:
| And you have about as much leverage in shaping the union
| contract as you do in negotiating your individual
| employment contract, so where's the win?
| toast0 wrote:
| If the new contract is worse, leaving the union isn't
| sufficient to get back to where you were, because the
| employer won't offer the old terms to non-union members
| and the new terms to union members.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > if you don't like it, yeah, leave the union, you're no
| worse off than you were before.
|
| Completely false. With the ways that union laws work, if
| the majority of workers at a company unionize, then I
| have no choice but to be subject to their contract and
| fees.
|
| Most tech companies are not in right to work states, so
| I'd have to go along with the contract.
|
| That is how I would be worse off.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Where are you that has laws constraining that you have to
| be a part of a particular union, sounds very Soviet (in
| the fascist, dictatorial sense).
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Only 28 states have right-to-work laws. In the rest,
| unions can force you to join or not work at the company
| in question.
| oarabbus_ wrote:
| >Most tech companies are not in right to work states, so
| I'd have to go along with the contract.
|
| Most tech companies are located in California, which is a
| right to work state.
| pxx wrote:
| What? No it isn't. Smattering of links:
|
| https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/right-
| to-... https://legalbeagle.com/13720413-is-california-a-
| right-to-wo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-
| work_law#US_states_wi...
| heavyset_go wrote:
| No one is forcing you to work a union job in the same way
| that no one is forcing you to work a job you don't like.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I (from the UK) don't understand: you don't have to join
| a union. Keep your current contract and don't have a say
| in Union representation and negotiation, if that's what
| you want.
|
| It's 'take greater combined power against the corporation
| you work for' (and in things like representation of your
| industry before government) or stand on your own as you
| do now.
|
| I don't understand how it's possible to lose?
|
| You can even wimp out at the first call for solidarity of
| you want to.
|
| In my current role there are 3 unions that are well
| represented in the work place, I chose one that seems
| best to represent my interests and that has members in
| industries I might move in to.
|
| Benefits for me are currently advice seminars on career
| progression and work related issues (pensions!), and
| annual pay negotiations (which are quite weak, pressing
| for inflationary pay rises).
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| This is not how most unions in America work. Usually the
| entire workforce is represented by (and pays dues to) the
| same union. Today's Google/Alphabet thing may be an
| exception to this.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| In a lot of cases, once there's a union you're either in
| it or unemployed. Unions have a lot of benefits and a lot
| of negatives. But voting to have one without knowing what
| _this specific one_ will have either way, knowing that
| you _must_ be part of it if it passes... that's not a
| clear decision.
| toast0 wrote:
| Some employers have a little flexibility in their contract
| (I got one of the probably not enforcable in California
| claims of ownership of work outside the office redlined on
| a support position).
|
| If you're joining an employer with a negotiated contract,
| there's really no chance to change it when you're hired;
| it's accept it or leave. You generally aren't part of the
| bargaining if you're not a current employee.
|
| Maybe the contract is better, but we'd have to see some to
| know. Maybe I don't want what the union wants and while I
| have a vote, it doesn't have significance unless my
| opinions are shared by others.
| esoterica wrote:
| > You DO know that you have virtually no say in what is in
| that contract, "accept it or leave," is not having a say in
| that contract.
|
| Not only is "accept it or leave it" very much a form of
| "having a say" in your work parameters, it's a much more
| powerful way of exerting your preferences than voting.
|
| If 100,000 people are voting on a contract your 1/100,000th
| share of the influence functionally rounds to zero. The
| contract will reflect your coworkers aggregate preferences,
| which will in general be completely orthogonal to your own
| preferences. On the other hand, when you shop around for a
| job you have unbounded freedom to decide where you want to
| apply to and what working conditions are you willing to
| accept. If you want more job stability and better working
| hours in exchange for lower pay, someone will be willing to
| offer it to you. If you want "fuck you, pay me", someone
| else will offer that too.
| carbonguy wrote:
| > If 100,000 people are voting on a contract your
| 1/100,000th share of the influence functionally rounds to
| zero.
|
| Assuming that you make no effort to influence any of the
| hypothetical 100,000 people voting on the contract in any
| way.
|
| > The contract will reflect your coworkers aggregate
| preferences, which will in general be completely
| orthogonal to your own preferences.
|
| This is a fairly surprising assertion for me - I can't
| recall a time I've personally found this to be the case
| professionally. May I ask how you encountered this in
| your own professional experience?
| esoterica wrote:
| > Assuming that you make no effort to influence any of
| the hypothetical 100,000 people voting on the contract in
| any way.
|
| And if all 100k people all try to influence each other to
| different ends that ends up a wash.
|
| > This is a fairly surprising assertion for me
|
| Some people prefer better work life balance, other people
| prefer higher compensation. Some people want job
| security, others want higher risk and higher upside.
| Labour market mobility allows people to sort into the
| jobs that match their preferences, which is impossible to
| achieve through collective bargaining because the parts
| of the collective want different things.
| bumby wrote:
| > _The contract will reflect your coworkers aggregate
| preferences, which will in general be completely
| orthogonal to your own preferences._
|
| Can you elaborate on your thoughts here or cite evidence
| to support it? On first thought, it doesn't ring true to
| me. E.g., most of the union contract conditions seem to
| benefit most individuals with the exception of some edge
| cases
| sidlls wrote:
| "Accept it or leave it" is a post-facto event: one
| accepts or rejects the contents of the contract. What the
| OP is referring to is participation ("having a say") in
| the drafting of the contract itself. By definition
| "accept it or leave it" is not having a say in it.
| esoterica wrote:
| Having a say in the contract you end up signing (which
| may be at a variety of different companies) is more
| personally useful to the individual than having a say in
| the specific contract of a specific company. So the claim
| that unions give you more say in the employment
| conditions of a specific company is irrelevant because
| it's an optimization towards the wrong objective.
| ddingus wrote:
| The better organizers will have a priority discussion.
|
| What terms improve things for everyone? How should work be?
|
| From there, they build solidarity around those terms.
|
| When the vision maps to 80 / 90 percent of labor at that
| enterprise, the effort to unionize can win.
| dleslie wrote:
| You're taking it on faith that those with authority in the
| discussions will be acting altruistically with equitable
| consideration for all would-be members.
| ddingus wrote:
| No I am not. Failure to set that expectation easily is
| one of the reasons for much higher solidarity numbers
| needed to win these days.
|
| In the US, costs and risks are pretty high. People need
| more than they did in times past.
| esoterica wrote:
| > What terms improve things for everyone? How should work
| be?
|
| There is no such thing as "improving things for everyone"
| because different people have different preferences. Some
| people want job stability, some people want work life
| balance, some people just want to get paid, fuck everything
| else. If a union tries to pursue some priorities over
| others they are screwing over all the employees who have
| different preferences.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Join a different union?
|
| If your union refuses to let workers be exploited for
| unpaid overtime, but you really like working to make
| other people rich, leave!?
| ddingus wrote:
| Yes there is. Happens all over the world.
|
| And frankly, sometimes there is no basis for solidarity,
| and thus no union.
|
| Resolving that is a discussion that actually does
| determine whether there is improvement for everyone, not
| just some blanket statement or other.
|
| Finally, yeah. A few people may not give a fuck.
| Consideration due is consideration given.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| > When the vision maps to 80 / 90 percent of labor at that
| enterprise, the effort to unionize can win.
|
| The odds of this happening at Google in the next ten years
| are pretty low, I'd say. That's why they organized this as
| a members-only union rather than trying to do a real
| unionization drive.
| ddingus wrote:
| I agree. It will be interesting to see it play out.
|
| Members only does lower the bar considerably.
|
| Size matters. If it gets big?
|
| New ideas matter too.
|
| The traditional union struggle has become very difficult
| in the US. The high solidarity numbers required today are
| 20 to 30 points more than necessary before.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| So you want someone who can tell you what the yet-to-be-
| negotiated contract with your employer will look like? Maybe
| you should be looking to join up with the Mage's Guild, I
| understand that their magic can see the future very clearly.
| bjo590 wrote:
| I don't need to see a negotiated contract. I need to see a
| list of grievances the union wants to negotiate for. So far
| everything I have ever wanted but not had from an employer
| I was able to find by switching employers. What is
| something concrete that would make my life better that I
| can only get by joining a union?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Really spitballing, but one that comes to mind is
| eliminate forced private arbitration? I haven't been able
| to avoid that one by switching employers.
| pb7 wrote:
| Google got rid of forced arbitration recently _without_
| unions.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > without unions.
|
| Conveniently omitting the 20k strong walkout. That's
| organizing.
|
| I hadn't heard that it was for all cases, kudos to
| Google. But of course that is just one example among
| many.
| pb7 wrote:
| Not omitting anything. Organizing is what discontinued
| the DoD contracts and several other unsavory problems in
| recent years. That's entirely my point: employees already
| have the power to effect change for important issues
| without involving all of the problems that plague
| official unions like teachers' unions and police unions.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I don't see what adding a body that allows you to vote on
| what get's done involves all of those problems.
|
| Unions are structured in a way determined by the workers
| who are voting, there is no inevitable path for a union
| to take. A teacher union is very different from an
| actor's union, for instance, even if they are covered by
| the same basic laws.
| johncessna wrote:
| Google is actively involved in DoD contracts.
|
| https://fcw.com/articles/2020/05/20/google-cloud-diu-
| william...
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/thousands-
| contracts-h...
|
| https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/cia-awards-cloud-
| comp... (Not DoD, but the US IC)
| finnthehuman wrote:
| >So you want someone who can tell you what the yet-to-be-
| negotiated contract with your employer will look like?
|
| In broad strokes, yes.
|
| Here's an analogy: I know it's not implemented yet, but I
| want the design doc and market research, not just the
| elevator pitch.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This is usually communicated in the course of organizing
| - you don't win union elections by not communicating what
| you stand for/what would be pushed for in a new contract.
| calvano915 wrote:
| When the company has numerous legal or illegal but usually
| unpunished methods to suppress the discussion, it can be very
| difficult to conduct the negotiations between employees
| necessary for the concise plan/contract you request.
|
| Voting in a union is actually voting first that you opt in to
| a collective bargaining agreement, then negotiating the terms
| of the agreement among members. Later, negotiations are had
| with the company.
|
| Your POV is common to many that will accept much less with
| certainty rather than working through a decent amount of
| uncertainty for the prospect of a whole lot more.
| finnthehuman wrote:
| >Your POV is common to many that will accept much less with
| certainty rather than working through a decent amount of
| uncertainty for the prospect of a whole lot more.
|
| Don't you put that on me. You're explicitly talking about a
| scenario where we're not even comparing notes on the
| possibility space of that uncertainty until I'm downside-
| committed.
| ddingus wrote:
| Seriously, go look up a few good organizers. They have
| written books on all this. You can see how things get
| done.
|
| Won't answer whether they should get done. That question
| is open right now.
|
| The market research goes like this:
|
| Who are the influencers?
|
| What do they think?
|
| What does rank and file think?
|
| Is there potential for high degree of solidarity in all
| that?
|
| There is your basis for an effort to be put forth for you
| to consider right there.
|
| Then the real work begins. Sort the people out and work
| toward a winning scenario.
|
| There is risk. The better organizers manage that by how
| and with whom and when organizing is done.
|
| By the time you reach potential downside commit, there
| will be a much more clear deal to consider.
| finnthehuman wrote:
| > Seriously, go look up a few good organizers.
|
| No. The organization movement wants me, I don't want
| them. They can come to me.
| carbonguy wrote:
| In your parent comment you asked:
|
| > Where the fuck is the actual case study about the
| structure of the system, constraints, influences,
| incentives? How does it evolve and how does the contract
| change and evolve that system?
|
| These are the questions that some organizers who have
| written books about organizing are also trying to answer.
| ddingus wrote:
| That will happen. The how of it will be made clear either
| way. Or not. There my not be a basis for high solidarity
| too.
|
| You simply asked a great question and I let you know
| where the answer is found and sketched a piece of it for
| you.
|
| That's all.
| finnthehuman wrote:
| Thanks for the info in general, I just wasn't expecting a
| general response to be your motivation in a response to a
| comment where I pointed out the parent poster was
| bullshitting me.
| ddingus wrote:
| All good man. I appreciate a sharp bullshit detector.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| What do you think the software industry will be like 20 years
| from now? Do you think the cushy salaries and relative lack
| of gate keeping will stay around? I sure as hell don't.
|
| Unionize now, even if you earn a little less, while you have
| the most bargaining power, so that later you don't have to
| fight through pinkerton detectives just to get a seat at the
| table.
|
| There's a reason companies like Google suppress initiatives
| to form unions, and build strong zeitgeists within their
| employee base that unionization is bad. If unionization is so
| bad why do companies spend so much money breaking it up? For
| the good of the workers? Bahahaha.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > There's a reason companies like Google suppress
| initiatives to form unions, and build strong zeitgeists
| within their employee base that unionization is bad. If
| unionization is so bad why do companies spend so much money
| breaking it up?
|
| If something was bad, why would you take the existence of
| opposition to it as evidence of it being good?
|
| Suppose unionization was bad for both employers and
| employees. You would certainly expect employers to oppose
| that. Even if it was totally neutral for employers and bad
| for employees, they would oppose unionization at their own
| company because it would make it more difficult for them to
| attract and retain quality employees.
| ksenzee wrote:
| If unionization were bad for employees, I'd expect the
| employers to be able to make that case persuasively. If
| they don't, I assume there's not much of a case to be
| made.
| ahepp wrote:
| By what mechanism will salaries fall? And thus by what
| mechanism will SWE unions keep salaries high, but gates
| open?
| labcomputer wrote:
| Salaries would fall due to increased supply. A union
| would keep salaries high by _not_ keeping the gates open
| (if it were modeled on the film industry unions).
| ahepp wrote:
| This is what I'd consider the "traditional" answer to the
| function of a union. I think it makes plenty of sense.
|
| The parent comment seemed to me to suggest that a union
| would both keep the door open and the price high, and I
| don't see any clear way a union would do that.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Additionally, the low hanging fruit for automation is
| going to diminish. We'll always have things to automate,
| but _in general_ those things will decrease in value.
| hnuser847 wrote:
| > A union would keep salaries high by not keeping the
| gates open
|
| That's the same argument people use against immigration.
|
| I realize HN is a diverse place and not everybody has the
| same opinion on these matters, but I find it interesting
| that people here generally support labor protectionism
| when it applies to high-income earners like software
| engineers, but they don't support closing the borders in
| order to increase the wages of low-income earners.
| derivagral wrote:
| USA-centric (but not in the south): I'm pretty open to
| most immigration. The "close our borders" discussion
| tends to lump in skilled-worker programs; I think those
| are usually more amenable to most than general
| immigration. Regardless, my country was built on
| immigration and I think it'd be foolish to lose sight of
| that.
| sircastor wrote:
| Random anecdote: I remember in his book, Wil Wheaton talks
| about going to auditions and how the producers are supposed to
| pay a nominal fee to everyone, but no one ever collects it
| because it means you'd never get called for further auditions.
| sl1ck731 wrote:
| I was investigating unions over the holidays and saw that these
| types of things are specific to companies which didn't make sense
| to me. I'm not familiar with unions in general, but the ones I
| hear about most in the trades seem to be exterior to any specific
| company.
|
| Making unions specific to a company rather than a profession
| seems less useful...or are trade unions specific to their
| companies as well?
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| A little off topic: as a developer living in the UK and
| considering joining a union, which one(s) should I consider?
| davidfekke wrote:
| I am not sure what good it will do to join a Union if you can't
| collectively bargain. You would essentially be paying dues out of
| your salary, and not getting anything in return. If you don't
| like Google, than quit.
| halflings wrote:
| On this group's homepage [1]: "We are BIPOC workers who fight
| against totalitarianism."
|
| I am not sure what this has to do with unionizing Google workers.
| Using obscure acronyms to arbitrarily focus on race and ethnicity
| (something frowned upon here in Europe at least) + the hyperbole
| of "fighting totalitarianism" doesn't give me great confidence
| that this is representing workers, as much as it is pushing the
| ideology of a vocal minority.
|
| If they truly believe they represent the majority of Google
| employees, then they are free to widely share this call
| internally and see how many people actually agree with them and
| want to join their group. So far, it's ~0.2K out of ~260K
| employees.
|
| [1] https://alphabetworkersunion.org/
| sulam wrote:
| s/260/120/
| halflings wrote:
| "Google employs more than 130,000 contractors and temp
| workers, a shadow work force that outnumbers its 123,000
| full-time" [1]
|
| 130K+123K = 253K (article from May, likely closer to 260K
| now)
|
| One of the main points this group is making is that they want
| to equally represent fulltime employees and contractors.
|
| "All Alphabet workers deserve a voice: full-time employees,
| temporary employees, contractors, and vendors. We care for
| and support each other by striving for open and continuous
| dialogue among union members." [2]
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/technology/google-
| rescind... [2]
| https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-
| statemen...
| LambdaComplex wrote:
| I'm all for fighting against totalitarianism, but I feel like
| it's kinda weird to get a job at Google if you actually care
| about that
| Merman_Mike wrote:
| Sounds more like a political party than a labor union.
| neartheplain wrote:
| This is a common criticism of teacher unions in the USA [0].
| They donate dues money to left-leaning political causes
| against the wishes of many of their members. In a union shop,
| dues-paying employees have no choice in the matter. It is
| compelled political speech.
|
| I expect this will be a big issue in tech unions also.
|
| [0] https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2019/10/16/opin
| ion...
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > In a closed shop, these members have no choice in the
| matter.
|
| Union shop, not closed shop. Closed shops have been illegal
| for over 70 years.
| neartheplain wrote:
| You are correct, I used the wrong term. I have fixed it
| in my original comment.
|
| In the US, outside of states with right-to-work laws, a
| union shop can still require workers to pay dues even if
| they aren't members of the union.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_shop#United_States
| gredelston wrote:
| To be clear, the "BIPOC workers" and "fight against
| totalitarianism" are elements of picklists, with other options
| like "We are technologists who want pay equity". The overall
| message of the picklist is that the union is an inclusive group
| which stands together for a variety of reasons.
|
| And, the union doesn't claim to speak for all workers. It only
| claims to speak for its members, and to fight to protect all
| workers.
| halflings wrote:
| Thanks, I tried to clarify this in my original comment, but
| it can no longer be edited.
|
| I'm not sure that changes much. To me, "BIPOC" is anything
| but inclusive. It's an acronym that apparently was used for
| about a month, by people of a very specific political
| ideology, and seems to be criticized by the very people this
| term is supposed to represent. [1]
|
| And what does totalitarianism have to do with anything? I am
| all for putting a bit more power in employees' hands (esp.
| for issues where HR will throw an employee under the bus),
| but can we please keep the divisive political rhetoric out of
| it? Not shoehorn "BIPOC" and politically-charged language
| everywhere?
|
| I am a "BIPOC", but I feel this rhetoric will be more
| effective with (mostly white) progressives/liberals, not the
| people it purports to represent.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-bipoc.html
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