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Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich
- WhyNotThough 7y agoLive by the sword, die by the sword.
- dang 7y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
- NotSammyHagar 7y agoBetter workplace protection for whistleblowers and protection from sexism and company retaliation seems like a good thing for google. There have been a stream of these court cases. I think this is actually something that would also benefit google - they seem to constantly struggle with this. I think google is no worse than other tech companies and based on my time there I think the company is well intentioned. They are just so large, a little more structure could help them. Of course, union members with workplace protections don't usually get stock grants, free food, and a free gym. Google needs to address these problems themselves, but of course it's so hard for big companies not to just try to stop unions. Instead of stopping unions, work on those workplace protections. Stop hiding problems and paying off executives with tons of sexual harassment claims to go away.
- zajd 7y ago> Better workplace protection for whistleblowers and protection from sexism and company retaliation seems like a good thing for google. You're delusional if you think these are a "good thing" for the people who are in control of the organization. There's a reason they are anti-unions. Unions are effective and will reduce their profits by enfranchising their workers. Free food, gym memberships, and stock options have nothing to do with Google workers being unionized. If you believe that you're just eating the propaganda the ownership class is pushing. Unions work and are desperately needed. Google will never let it happen, and the US government is happy to stand by and let these sorts of blatantly illegal anti-union tactics keep taking place... because surprise, the same ones collecting Google's profits are the same people who control the government. (and yes, I realize this is in Zurich, which is not in the US, but pretty much all western governments bow to the US so it's irrelevant really)
- twobat 7y agoIt always seemed "funny" how come executives with more wealth than some cities get to become sexual aggressors.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- walshemj 7y agoTalk to my mate at BT (with union regontion) who made £125k tax free on his final sharesave. And Google Et Al only give "free" food as the IRS doesn't tax it as a benefit in kind - quite why they don't as it would be an easy tax to collect.
- hnaccy 7y agoI thought IRS started taxing the free food? Bummed me out, since I love it as a perk.
- anon73044 7y agohttps://blog.namely.com/tax-reform-takes-a-bite-out-of-office-snacks https://blog.namely.com/tax-reform-takes-a-bite-out-of-offic... vs https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/irs-employer-provided-meals-snacks-tax.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pa... hard to tell what's accurate these days
- 0xEFF 7y agoYes, free meals are taxed. The worker's employer receives the 1099. For FTE's Google pays the tax, for TVC's their employer receives a 1099-MISC each year. This is why you'll notice all US based offices require you to badge in every meal every time while an office in Canada does not.
- minikites 7y ago>Of course, union members with workplace protections don't usually get stock grants, free food, and a free gym. The reason Google provides those things is because someone crunched the numbers and determined that it was a cheaper way to get employees to work free overtime compared to higher salaries.
- esoterica 7y agoHow many unionized companies pay higher salaries than Google?
- Zarath 7y agoThis is a trick question in so many ways. Almost every single company in the country pays less than Google. So you could say the same about any non-unionized company too. If unions arose out of poor working conditions then it probably follows that salaries for that work were poor. Just because you make a lot of money, doesn't mean you're not being underpaid or exploited. These software companies aren't some of the most profitable companies in the world for no reason.
- briandear 7y ago> Just because you make a lot of money, doesn't mean you're not being underpaid or exploited. If you are a Google engineer, you can go work for literally anyone else if you feel you are underpaid and exploited. It isn’t like Google is the only buyer of labor in that market. Some chicken processing plant in Iowa — that might be a different conversation, but this is Google. If you feel you are underpaid, then leave. Go work for Netflix, I hear they pay a lot. Don’t like Netflix? Try Apple, LinkedIn, or start your own company. Plenty of money out there for an “ex-Google engineer” with an idea.
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoSo here's something I always wonder about when I see arguments that unions aren't necessary at tech companies like Google because the workers are highly compensated and presumably well-treated: if we're all sure that's objectively the case, then why should management fight unionization efforts? Aren't they confident that the union isn't going to come in and say, "Yeah, actually you guys are pretty good, carry on?" If not, why not? And, yes, one answer is "if there are no reasonable demands to be made, the union will make unreasonable ones," and sure, that's possible. Maybe newly-unionized employees will suddenly demand double bonuses, three months' paid vacation a year, and free ice cream for life. But I'm not convinced that's the real worry.
- IX-103 7y agoWas the unionization for Google employees or for their contractors? In the case of contractors Google doesn't have direct control over their compensation or perks (except that they must be excluded from some perks to still be legally considered contractors). The whole contractors vs employee distinction is rather sketchy and I think this is yet another symptom of that problem. Google wants contractors instead of employees (because reasons). They hire a contracting company to get workers. The contracting company treats the workers badly, but Google is legally and contractually bound in how it can interfere with workings of the contracting company. If Google just fires the contracting company, I'm not sure anyone would be better off. Reminds me of a government job I had. We were required to have contractors for some portion of the workforce. The contracting company some co-workers worked for went bust and they had to shop around to find a new agency to work through. They ended up in a good bargaining position since they effectively already had placement. They ended up better off than the direct employees (stupid government pay grade scale). They probably could have done better if they were allowed to create their own contacting agency, but they couldn't because it wouldn't have been on the government's whitelist.
- trothamel 7y agoI'm by no means familiar with labor law, but are companies (in Switzerland or the US) required to actively support unionization? It seems like it would be one thing to actively oppose unionization, and another thing to require the organizers to provide their own meeting rooms, space, etc. Looking at the article, it seems like this is the latter.
- moate 7y agoUS- No, they're not required (or expected) to support unionization. There are specifics about how they're allowed to oppose it (saying "unions will hurt the company" is fine, saying "if you organize we will fire you" is not). That said, it's still newsworthy. Forming a union is usually a battle of public opinion. As an organizer, it's likely in your best interest to say "hey, look your company only wants to explain unionization if they can help sculpt the message" as exactly the sort of behavior that would drive you towards having a union. TL;dr- Unionization is frequently about optics, and these aren't great optics for Google.
- NewsAware 7y agoCan only answer for Germany, but yes, here the employer is required to provide for the initial meeting where the first employee committee (Betriebsrat) is elected. This includes rooms, paper etc but in particular informing all employees about the initiative as well as freeing people up during their paid work time so they can attend.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- lonelappde 7y agoThis is a company that dedicates office space and employee time to massage, coffee bars, LAN party rooms, rock climbing walls, bowling alley, all manner of perks, but not one hour per ever of discuss of employee rights.
- dahdum 7y ago> In the email, Google said it was canceling the meeting because the company prefers to only host events on the topic organized in partnership with Google’s site leadership team. So this was a meeting organized solely by employees, using company property, on the company campus, on a workday, with the only speakers allowed being the union reps? I’m not surprised management would try to cancel that, it sounds like a pro-union propaganda party at Google’s expense.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago> pro-union propaganda party Typically you just say "organizing".
- Porthos9K 7y agoThis should not be grayed, but HN is full of bootlickers.
- tdb7893 7y agoMy experience is that HN often aligns with more Libertarian ideologies in the comment section.
- Porthos9K 7y agoReal libertarians, or the "privatize tyranny" crowd?
- claudeganon 7y agoI’ve seen people downvoted for highlighting that “libertarian” was a term invented in the context of anarchist and socialist struggle before being co-opted by the right, so I’m going to go with the latter...
- Porthos9K 7y ago
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y agoI'm a SWE at Google, and as much as I love unions, I'm not sure it makes sense for the software industry. Further, the larger tech companies already have a concept of "levels" to ensure some sense of pay equality, we already get better benefits than you can get anywhere else in the states. Realistically, what more will unions accomplish at a place like Google? I'd love 6 weeks of paid vacation as much as anyone. I don't see us getting that. I'd love to make twice as much money. I don't see that happening. I'd love for promotions and hiring to be more fair / better, but I don't see how this accomplishes that (nor do I know anyway to improve it).
- toomuchtodo 7y agoI'd ask only that you not impede those who do believe in more workplace protections and benefits while they get that work done (ideally locked in with labor law, along with strong unions). I'm sure a two day weekend and 40 hour work week was once thought of as impossible as well.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y agoI'm not impeding. And I could get behind it. I just don't see what realistically it can accomplish.
- Kalium 7y agoLive and let live, right? Some people are leery about the possibility of their employer turning into a closed shop. I know I would not be happy if my employer suddenly turned into a union shop in a way that strongly affected me and gave me minimal choice in the matter. I only ask that you consider why people might choose to sit on the sidelines.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoBased on my experience, people sit on the sidelines because they're comfortable. People advocating for change should be polite first, and then not polite if politeness fails.
- tastythrowaway 7y ago"don't be evil"
- vkaku 7y agoCall me a cynic, but Europe isn't the USA. There are a lot of countries in EU which have, IMO, better work culture and fairness of negotiation as the guiding philosophies behind the work. If Google did this in the USA, it wouldn't be seen as much. However, they have strong laws against this in EU, and this incident would not portray Google in favorable light, IMO. I also feel that it is high time engineers realized that fairness in work is something we'd all love to have, and historically, skilled people have kept unions to ensure that they don't get screwed over. I believe that at the end of the day, if you need fairness in negotiation, you need to have a way to express it, especially if it isn't supply driven.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pergadad 7y agoUnion busting and retaliation against unionisation efforts is prohibited in most (all?) EU countries. Of course in practice not always easy to prove.
- ska 7y agoIsn't it illegal in the US also? Doesn't seem to stop it from happening.
- SolarNet 7y agoIn theory, but the US laws are a lot weaker and also not well enforced. The EU actually enforces it's laws on this subject and they are not as simple to "not technically illegal" them.
- jeffrallen 7y agoSwitzerland is not in the EU.
- spectramax 7y agoYea I feel like it’s cliche to hate on America these days. For those comparing Switzerland to USA, you’re comparing a highly homogeneous culture and highly optimized country to a land full of immigrants gathering in excess of 300 million. Americans criticize their own country more than anyone else. OP’s post not only misses the fact that Switzerland is not in the EU, but more importantly the spirit of argument is baseless with the general perception that things are better in EU.
- mscasts 7y agoGoogle has become such a garbage company to be honest. Is anything they do nowadays good and honest? I think Google heavily needs to be split up.
- tahdig 7y agoI feel hitting Google with monopoly lawsuits without going after the others would just make it worst. Atleast Google somehow competes with the Facebook and Amazon which in my view are "more evil". My other concern is, big co can resist stupid stuff government agencies want, they failed on PRISM but I feel they might have a better chance next time around as employees unionise and demand the company drop supporting unethical contract such as Googles' search engine for China (Project Dragonfly) case etc.
- xckfs 7y agoHaving worked at many large companies, I can honestly say that Google was the best behaved company of all of them, by far. I think the difference is that Google has a relatively large contingent of "activist" type employees, and they're given a lot of latitude to speak their mind. When something bad happens, everybody hears about it because the employees are the ones shouting it loudest from the rooftops. Their track record isn't perfect, and Dragonfly particularly strikes a chord with me. But other companies do worse, and you're just much less likely to hear about it.
- SomeOldThrow 7y agoWell they’re also strangling the internet with their ads, so I’m not sure they aren’t also structurally evil. I have worked there myself in the past and it was very pleasant.
- mscasts 7y ago> I think the difference is that Google has a relatively large contingent of "activist" type employees Yes, I believe also this is the case. This is also in my opinion the biggest issue with Google nowadays and what makes it extra garbage. They seem to be caught again and again to use their large size to surpress and censor people and companies.
- cosmodisk 7y agoTo those reading the article from America: whatever is mentioned here about Europe or unions, please note that Switzerland is a planet on its own in Europe,with completely different mentality,laws and is hardly comparable with any other country. Also, the entire tech sector in there is more of a high end because of the costs.
- marmada 7y agoWouldn't unions at Google be bad. If unions imposed rules guaranteeing seniority benefits/tenure rules that would make it harder for younger workers. I am a fan of unions for blue collar work but unions/labor orgs for higher pay organizations seem to be bad because they prevent foreign workers from entering and they make it harder for young people.
- drewbug01 7y agoUnions - at least under US law - are not required to impose seniority rules. Unions which have done so have those rules because at some point, the union’s membership wanted it.
- NelsonMinar 7y agoDoes Google have older workers? https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/07/23/google-settles-age-discrimination-lawsuit-highlighting-the-proliferation-of-ageism-in-hiring/#3b9f81d45c67 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/07/23/google-set...
- mav3rick 7y agoYes they do. Many good experienced engineers.
- ansidyskop 7y agoI wonder how you define old and many. If you're 36, you look around one day and realize you're the "old" dev. That's kind of the reality of the software industry, though. I moved into FAANG from a different engineering discipline, where engineers increase in value as they get older. In software, sadly, age isn't much of an asset. Most of what you spend your time learning today will be irrelevant in a few years.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago> In software, sadly, age isn't much of an asset. Most of what you spend your time learning today will be irrelevant in a few years. Kind of—but everything old is new again. I was surprised to find I actually have a pretty good understanding of Babel/typescript/webpack because they’re just reimplementing the c compiler and linker in JavaScript, albeit with very little solid documentation. Most of the interesting language ideas are pretty old—smalltalk still looks futuristic to me. Thinking about systemic failure is really hard and that takes time to develop.
- random59129412 7y agoI've been thinking lately that we, as people working in the tech industry, especially in places like London, NY, SF, are in a unique position to self organize in a way no other group of workers is. We are fortunate enough to live in a period that our skills are extremely sought for, we tend to work and specialize in code bases or technologies specific to a company, but we at any time we can take these skills and move away.~ The atmosphere and the general consensus in most companies tends to be that "no one is irreplaceable" which is true but it doesn't seem to take into account the cost to replace someone: You will need to find the right person, which means that some engineers' time will be spent on interviews, either phone ones or face to face, and not delivering "value" for the company; once you find the right person, you will then need to spend at least an extra month where that person is getting up to speed with "how things work" (paired with another person probably, even more time spent not delivering "value"), plus some more time for that person to actually become productive, and eventually after a few months, get in the position of the person that left. Now, think in your immediate team, what is your bus factor? How many people would need to leave before it's going to be unsustainable for the feature/project/company to continue? The usual counter-argument is that "it's easy to leave if you're young, but when you have family, you have to think more than just yourself" and I can totally sympathize with this. But as I said in the beginning, especially if you work for in one of the big hubs, and/or in one of the FAANGs, you could probably be in a new place within a week's time. We don't need to "unionize" in the traditional term. The companies don't even have to "acknowledge" a union. As long as we keep in mind how fortunate we are to working in tech now, and we are determined to just walk away from places that we are not happy at, they will come to us.
- geggam 7y agoUntil you compare your salary and expenses to that of someone who was working blue collar 40 years ago. My dad made enough to support a family of four as an appliance repair man. He got a new car every so often, built a shop and had a home mostly paid for and we went on vacations. Going to the doctor wasnt a big deal and no one worried about being bankrupt from a hospital stay/ I am supporting a family of four and we get by. My car is 18 years old with 260k miles on it and I am hoping to get another 3-4 years out of it so the kids finish college. (community college, I am not rich and cannot afford anything else). The family is one major medical incident away from bankruptcy and I have good insurance You tell me how good you have it and I will reply that is because you dont know how good it could be.
- ziggomat 7y agoI imagine Google is what It is today because of their workers, not managers or enforcing “drinking of the Kool Aid”, so to speak ¯\(°_o)/¯
- carapace 7y agoRemember when Google, Apple, and "dozens more" stole billions of dollars in wage theft from their own devs? https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/ https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valle... https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/ https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage...
- ben_utzer 7y ago>Meanwhile, in other offices, Google employees have been posting memes in solidarity with their Zurich colleagues, criticizing management for trying to control the talk about unionization. memes?