5 ms·

Lower paychecks (75-80% of hourly rate of full-time workers), little to no benefits (like healthcare coverage), harder to keep track of for taxation purposes, h

by r3bl 7y ago

Lower paychecks (75-80% of hourly rate of full-time workers), little to no benefits (like healthcare coverage), harder to keep track of for taxation purposes, harder to object to inhumane conditions like exploitative working hours or sexual harassment (since you're seen as a "guest" instead of an employee, complaining to the HR will usually result in you simply being discarded and replaced by someone else who won't complain) etc. Note: I wrote this as a general trend, which does not mean this applies to Google specifically.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
When I was contracting, I was making significantly more than my usual salaried rate. Using contractors doesn’t mean you must be exploiting them somehow.
- brianwawok 7y ago
  Porn filter temps or any of the low end temps aren’t paid like developer contractors.
- acdha 7y ago
  You have to remember that we’re a couple decades into reclassifying jobs with less negotiating power as contractors and healthcare costs growing astronomically (not unrelated). The people who are still doing traditional contracting - short-term experts, independent businesses which can negotiate – are going to have a very different experience than the people who were never respected.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
Is this like for like? your not going to pay a security guard the same as a SRE are you. If I went as a contactor in the UK id expect 2x to 3x when compared to a FTE at a similar grade.
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  “If I went as a contactor in the UK id expect 2x to 3x when compared to a FTE at a similar grade.” At least in the US that’s often not how it works. The agency takes a big cut and the contractor probably makes less than an FTE. In my company must contractors are super eager to go full time given the opportunity.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- r3bl 7y ago
  Just because we're in a position to say no doesn't mean that we shouldn't feel compassion for the others that are not in an opportunity to do so. A tech office without a janitor will be dysfunctional, same as the one without a senior engineer. But unlike a senior engineering position, a janitor will not be a full-time position. I'd personally even take it one step further: those who are payed the least need benefits the most. By relegating this work to temporary workers you're doing exactly the opposite: cutting away the privileges that the full-time employees have. Not to just one employee, but anyone who's ever going to fill out that position. A trip to the doctor would not make a dent in a senior engineer's pocket (regardless of the insurance), but a janitor could not afford a trip to the doctor in the first place. This could work in a country with good social programs to fall back on, but it has catastrophic consequences in the US.
  - C1sc0cat 7y ago
    Oh I agree.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    I agree in general terms, but the solution would be to pass stricter laws requiring more benefits to full-time workers. These contractors are full-time workers, they're just full-time workers of staffing firms that contract with Google and that themselves don't have benefits that are nearly as good. So either require them to offer better benefits, or preferably, decouple benefits from employment entirely. Everyone should get healthcare, retirement accounts, etc.; it shouldn't be tied to your employer. It's unreasonable to expect one company to make big strides in this area when all it does it put them at a competitive disadvantage to their peers. Google is already mandating a $15/hour minimum wage on all contracted-out workers, plus some minimums for sick days, which is much better than most other companies (which tend not to have requirements on contracted out employees in their contracts with staffing firms at all).
    - r3bl 7y ago
      This is precisely why I added that note in my first comment. I'm talking about general trends as a response to this: > What does it matter? Is there a US cultural/social nuance that I'm missing? I'm not familiar enough with Google's specific practices to reach a conclusion about that.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  Staffers have undeniably more leverage that contractors. So yes, on an 'all things equal' basis, this will come out oddly. It's one thing to outsource security, another to outsource people who work as part of the organization: admins, executive assistants, developers, recruiters etc..
- cosmie 7y ago
  Contractors for large companies[1] in the US almost always goes through staffing firms - direct contracts with independent contractors are comparatively rare. And even when you do want to bring on an independent contractor, you usually still have to route them through some designated third party staffing firm so that the contractual relationship is IC <-> Staffing Firm <-> Client. This is all due to fact that there are huge liability[2] concerns related to classifying someone as an IC but treating them as an employee. As such, there's almost always an intermediate taking a cut of the actual rate, even if you're a contractor to the staffing agency. Then you've got agency relationships, like where I work at now. I'm a salaried, full time employee for the agency I work for and I make about the regional median for my role. But I'm contracted out to clients (including Google) and bill hourly. Depending on the client and the specific roles I'm billing as for a given project, an hour of my time gets billed out anywhere from 2x - 6x what my fully loaded hourly cost is to my employer (salary + benefits + payroll taxes). So the cost to the client is certainly in line with your expectations, but it doesn't come back to me. [1] You don't see this as frequently at the SME end of the market for many reasons, not least of which is the deliberate inefficiency and increased costs of such a structure. [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-dont-treat-c/dont-treat-contractors-like-employees-idUSTRE53063S20090401 https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-...
  - C1sc0cat 7y ago
    That's what most of us do in the UK though self-employed contractors use a third-party firm just for billing which is just a few quid a week. Though that link is just showing how incompetent MS Hr was - when it happened I recall having a good laugh with some Colleagues who work in HR/IR
- IOT_Apprentice 7y ago
  Perhaps, until a shooter shows up at the youtube office and starts firing and then kills herself in front of you. That did happen and can happen at any firm, tech or otherwise.
- closeparen 7y ago
  Occupations paying differently is a major component of inequality, yes.
- funkjunky 7y ago
  It depends. For some contractor jobs, they need high level engineers short term and don't want to deal with the normal Google hiring process, which is expensive, difficult, and time consuming for many current employees (most technical interviews at Google are carried out by a random assortment of other engineers). In those cases, they can and will often pay equal or higher salaries to the contractor. In my case, the equivalent job at Google definitely carried more responsibilities, and they were paid more. However, I believe Google paid my consulting company more than the FTE salary for each of us, with my company taking their cut off the top (at least, that's what I heard). In short, it's complicated

by r3bl 7y ago

AmericanChopper 7y ago

When I was contracting, I was making significantly more than my usual salaried rate. Using contractors doesn’t mean you must be exploiting them somehow.

brianwawok 7y ago
Porn filter temps or any of the low end temps aren’t paid like developer contractors.
acdha 7y ago
You have to remember that we’re a couple decades into reclassifying jobs with less negotiating power as contractors and healthcare costs growing astronomically (not unrelated). The people who are still doing traditional contracting - short-term experts, independent businesses which can negotiate – are going to have a very different experience than the people who were never respected.

C1sc0cat 7y ago

Is this like for like? your not going to pay a security guard the same as a SRE are you. If I went as a contactor in the UK id expect 2x to 3x when compared to a FTE at a similar grade.

maxxxxx 7y ago
“If I went as a contactor in the UK id expect 2x to 3x when compared to a FTE at a similar grade.” At least in the US that’s often not how it works. The agency takes a big cut and the contractor probably makes less than an FTE. In my company must contractors are super eager to go full time given the opportunity.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
r3bl 7y ago
Just because we're in a position to say no doesn't mean that we shouldn't feel compassion for the others that are not in an opportunity to do so. A tech office without a janitor will be dysfunctional, same as the one without a senior engineer. But unlike a senior engineering position, a janitor will not be a full-time position. I'd personally even take it one step further: those who are payed the least need benefits the most. By relegating this work to temporary workers you're doing exactly the opposite: cutting away the privileges that the full-time employees have. Not to just one employee, but anyone who's ever going to fill out that position. A trip to the doctor would not make a dent in a senior engineer's pocket (regardless of the insurance), but a janitor could not afford a trip to the doctor in the first place. This could work in a country with good social programs to fall back on, but it has catastrophic consequences in the US.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Oh I agree.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  I agree in general terms, but the solution would be to pass stricter laws requiring more benefits to full-time workers. These contractors are full-time workers, they're just full-time workers of staffing firms that contract with Google and that themselves don't have benefits that are nearly as good. So either require them to offer better benefits, or preferably, decouple benefits from employment entirely. Everyone should get healthcare, retirement accounts, etc.; it shouldn't be tied to your employer. It's unreasonable to expect one company to make big strides in this area when all it does it put them at a competitive disadvantage to their peers. Google is already mandating a $15/hour minimum wage on all contracted-out workers, plus some minimums for sick days, which is much better than most other companies (which tend not to have requirements on contracted out employees in their contracts with staffing firms at all).
  - r3bl 7y ago
    This is precisely why I added that note in my first comment. I'm talking about general trends as a response to this: > What does it matter? Is there a US cultural/social nuance that I'm missing? I'm not familiar enough with Google's specific practices to reach a conclusion about that.
sonnyblarney 7y ago
Staffers have undeniably more leverage that contractors. So yes, on an 'all things equal' basis, this will come out oddly. It's one thing to outsource security, another to outsource people who work as part of the organization: admins, executive assistants, developers, recruiters etc..
cosmie 7y ago
Contractors for large companies[1] in the US almost always goes through staffing firms - direct contracts with independent contractors are comparatively rare. And even when you do want to bring on an independent contractor, you usually still have to route them through some designated third party staffing firm so that the contractual relationship is IC <-> Staffing Firm <-> Client. This is all due to fact that there are huge liability[2] concerns related to classifying someone as an IC but treating them as an employee. As such, there's almost always an intermediate taking a cut of the actual rate, even if you're a contractor to the staffing agency. Then you've got agency relationships, like where I work at now. I'm a salaried, full time employee for the agency I work for and I make about the regional median for my role. But I'm contracted out to clients (including Google) and bill hourly. Depending on the client and the specific roles I'm billing as for a given project, an hour of my time gets billed out anywhere from 2x - 6x what my fully loaded hourly cost is to my employer (salary + benefits + payroll taxes). So the cost to the client is certainly in line with your expectations, but it doesn't come back to me. [1] You don't see this as frequently at the SME end of the market for many reasons, not least of which is the deliberate inefficiency and increased costs of such a structure. [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-dont-treat-c/dont-treat-contractors-like-employees-idUSTRE53063S20090401 https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-...
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  That's what most of us do in the UK though self-employed contractors use a third-party firm just for billing which is just a few quid a week. Though that link is just showing how incompetent MS Hr was - when it happened I recall having a good laugh with some Colleagues who work in HR/IR
IOT_Apprentice 7y ago
Perhaps, until a shooter shows up at the youtube office and starts firing and then kills herself in front of you. That did happen and can happen at any firm, tech or otherwise.
closeparen 7y ago
Occupations paying differently is a major component of inequality, yes.
funkjunky 7y ago
It depends. For some contractor jobs, they need high level engineers short term and don't want to deal with the normal Google hiring process, which is expensive, difficult, and time consuming for many current employees (most technical interviews at Google are carried out by a random assortment of other engineers). In those cases, they can and will often pay equal or higher salaries to the contractor. In my case, the equivalent job at Google definitely carried more responsibilities, and they were paid more. However, I believe Google paid my consulting company more than the FTE salary for each of us, with my company taking their cut off the top (at least, that's what I heard). In short, it's complicated